Incentive Contracts (incentive + contract)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Private Predecision Information, Performance Measure Congruity, and the Value of Delegation,

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 4 2000
ROBERT M. BUSHMAN
Abstract We use a linear contracting framework to study how the relation between performance measures used in an agent's incentive contract and the agent's private predecision information affects the value of delegating decision rights to the agent. The analysis relies on the idea that available performance measures are often imperfect representations of the economic consequences of managerial actions and decisions, and this, along with gaming possibilities provided to the agent by access to private predecision information, may overwhelm any benefits associated with delegation. Our analytical framework allows us to derive intuitive conditions under which delegation does and does not have value, and to provide new insights into the linkage between imperfections in performance measurement and agency costs. [source]


Optimal Incentive Contracts for Loss-Averse Managers: Stock Options versus Restricted Stock Grants

FINANCIAL REVIEW, Issue 4 2006
Anna Dodonova
G39; M52 Abstract This paper provides an explanation for the widespread use of stock option grants in executive compensation. It shows that the optimal incentive contract for loss-averse managers must contain a substantial portion of stock options even when it should consist exclusively of stock grants for "classical" risk-averse managers. The paper also provides an explanation for the drastic increase in the risk-adjusted level of CEO compensations over the past two decades and argues that more option-based compensation should be used in firms with higher cash flow volatility and in industries with a higher degree of heterogeneity among firms. [source]


Performance Measure Congruity and the Balanced Scorecard

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 3 2007
JÖRG BUDDE
ABSTRACT This paper studies the incentive effects of a balanced scorecard within a multitask agency framework under both formal and relational contracts. First, the main characteristics of the balanced scorecard are analyzed with respect to performance measure congruity. It is shown that under complete verifiability, a properly designed balanced scorecard is capable of perfectly aligning the interests of owners and employees by means of an explicit contract. I then investigate whether subjective performance evaluation is beneficial when not all the scorecard measures are contractible. It emerges that congruity of the contractible scorecard measures constrains a purely implicit incentive contract, but the first-best solution may still be obtained through a combination of formal and relational contracts. Furthermore, a purely explicit contract in most cases can be improved by incorporating subjective rewards. [source]


Resource Allocation Auctions within Firms

JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 5 2007
STANLEY BAIMAN
ABSTRACT There is growing interest in the use of markets within firms. Proponents have noted that markets are a simple and efficient mechanism for allocating resources in economies in which information is dispersed. In contrast to the use of markets in the broader economy, the efficiency of an internal market is determined in large part by the endogenous contractual incentives provided to the participating, privately informed agents. In this paper, we study the optimal design of managerial incentives when resources are allocated by an internal auction market, as well as the efficiency of the resulting resource allocations. We show that the internal auction market can achieve first-best resource allocations and decisions, but only at an excessive cost in compensation payments. We then identify conditions under which the internal auction market and associated optimal incentive contracts achieve the benchmark second-best outcome as determined using a direct revelation mechanism. The advantage of the auction is that it is easier to implement than the direct revelation mechanism. When the internal auction mechanism is unable to achieve second-best, we characterize the factors that determine the magnitude of the shortfall. Overall, our results speak to the robust performance of relatively simple market mechanisms and associated incentive systems in resolving resource allocation problems within firms. [source]


When Redistribution Leads to Regressive Taxation

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 4 2007
CYRIL HARITON
We introduce labor contracts in a framework of optimal redistribution: firms have some local market power and try to discriminate among heterogeneous workers. In this setting we show that if the firms have perfect information, i.e., they perfectly discriminate against workers and take all the surplus, the best tax function is flat. If firms have imperfect information, i.e., if they offer incentive contracts, then (under some assumptions) the best redistributive taxation is regressive. [source]


Regulation and Coordination of International Environmental Externalities with Incomplete Information and Costly Public Funds

JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 3 2000
Faysal Mansouri
In this article, we study cross-border externalities in a game played by two principal-agent pairs with adverse selection. Each firm/agent is located in one country and generates pollution by producing complementary or substitute goods, sold on a common market. A fraction of pollution is transferred from one country to another. Each regulator/principal is imperfectly informed about the marginal cost of his domestic firm and accordingly uses secret incentive contracts with costly public funds. We show the necessity of cooperation between competing regulators to effectively internalize all the damages caused to the environment, while reaching the first best. If the level of uncertainty is sufficiently low, we obtain an infinity of noncooperative Bayesian differentiable equilibria, which may necessitate competing regulators to coordinate on an equilibrium. Such coordination constitutes an incentive for competing regulators to cooperate. Our major result states that under some circumstances asymmetric information relaxes the transborder externality problem. Indeed, we show that, when there is a major transfer of pollution and firms' marginal costs are sufficiently high, competing regulators are better off under uncertainty. Therefore, asymmetry of information can have the very consequence of generating regulation that is too strict from the domestic viewpoint but that improves social efficiency when the benefits to both countries are taken into account. [source]


Managerial expertise, learning potential and dynamic incentives: get more for less?

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2007
Christian LukasArticle first published online: 16 APR 200
In this paper the impact of ability and learning potential on incentive contracts is analyzed. A central feature of the model is that the true ability will not be revealed. The learning potential of an agent is modeled as the magnitude of impact on the agent's expected ability that learning-by-doing has in a given task. Absent a managerial labor market, depending on an agent's learning potential, a monotone or non-monotone pay structure may be optimal. The second important result is that using agents' ability distributions as inputs to information systems, higher learning potentials lead to less costly information systems, i.e. actions can be implemented at lower costs. Additionally, it is proven that the criteria cost minimization and value maximization are equivalent in the model's context. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]