Incentivizing effort through information disclosure

主讲人

Christopher Woolnough

简介

<p>This paper studies a principal-agent problem where a risk averse agent is able to exert costly effort to improve the distribution of his type, which in turn affects his value to the market. The principal is able to observe the agent's type, but not directly observe effort, and can then provide information to the market, which is competitive and pays the agent his expected valuation. The principal's goal is to pick an information scheme to maximise the agent's utility. For example, the principal could provide full information to the market, but this would expose the agent to the full amount of risk. Alternatively, the principal could provide no information, leading to a market wage that is constant, but leaves the agent with no incentives to exert effort. Thus, the principal faces a trade off between providing incentivizes the agent and smoothing the agent's risk. For an agent with binary types, the optimal information scheme is charaterized for a large class of utility functions. The crucial determinant of the optimal policy is prudence. It is shown that there exists a threshold, such that if the agent's prudence lies above this threshold, then the optimal policy is to reveal a fraction of good types and then pool the other agents. If the agent's prudence lies below this threshold, then optimal policy is to reveal a fraction of bad types and then pool the other agents.</p> <div>&nbsp;</div>

时间

2017-09-21(Thursday)16:40-18:00

地点

N303, Econ Building

讲座语言

English

主办单位

WISE&SOE

承办单位

类型

系列讲座

联系人信息

主持人

Nan Zhong

专题网站

专题

主讲人简介

<p>Assistant Professor in Microeconomics, Section AE1 Department of Economics, Maastrichut University, The Netherlands.</p> <div>Prof. Woolnough received the PhD. in Economics from New York University, his research fields include Microeconomic Theory and Asset pricing, Experimental economics.</div> <div>Please click <span style="color: rgb(51, 153, 102);"><a href="/Upload/File/2017/9/20170918032311596.pdf">Prof. Woolnough's CV</a> t</span>o find more.</div>

期数

“WISE-SOE”高级经济学系列讲座2017秋第一讲(总第385讲)

主讲人: Christopher Woolnough
主讲人简介:

Assistant Professor in Microeconomics, Section AE1 Department of Economics, Maastrichut University, The Netherlands.

Prof. Woolnough received the PhD. in Economics from New York University, his research fields include Microeconomic Theory and Asset pricing, Experimental economics.
Please click Prof. Woolnough's CV to find more.
主持人: Nan Zhong
简介:
系列讲座
时间: 2017-09-21(Thursday)16:40-18:00
地点: N303, Econ Building
期数: “WISE-SOE”高级经济学系列讲座2017秋第一讲(总第385讲)
主办单位: WISE&SOE
类型: 系列讲座