Robust Contracting Under Distributional Uncertainty

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Li, Jiangtao; Wang, Kexin
• 署名单位: Singapore Management University; Capital University of Economics & Business
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12780
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: foundations; mechanisms

摘要

We study contract design when the principal has limited information about the output distributions induced by the agent's actions. In a baseline model where only the means are known, we show that increasing affine contracts are robustly optimal. The mean restrictions accommodate a wide range of output distributions, including extreme cases that help establish this optimality. We then extend the analysis to environments with additional constraints on the distributions. Our main result shows that the robust optimality of increasing affine contracts persists even when the principal knows more-for example, that each action induces a distribution with full support.