Optimal Contracts with Random Auditing
Optimal Contracts with Random Auditing

Author: Andrei Barbos

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13:

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In this paper we study an optimal contract problem under moral hazard in a principal-agent framework where contracts are implemented through random auditing. This monitoring instrument reveals the precise action taken by the agent with some nondegenerate probability r, and otherwise reveals no information. We characterize optimal contracts with random perfect monitoring under several information structures that allow for moral hazard and adverse selection. We evaluate the effect of the intensity of monitoring, as measured by r, on the value of the optimal contract. We show that more intense monitoring always increases the value of a contract when the principal can commit to make payments even if the an evaluation reveals that the agent took an action not allowed by the terms of the contract. When such commitment is infeasible and in equilibrium the agent shirks under some realizations of his type, the value of a contract may decrease in r.

Sorting the Good Guys from Bad
Sorting the Good Guys from Bad

Author: Anna Maria C. Menichini

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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In a costly state verification model under commitment, the principal may acquire a costly public and imperfectly revealing signal before or after contracting. If the project remains profitable after all signal realizations, optimally the signal is collected, if at all, only after contracting, and it may be acquired randomly or deterministically. Moreover, audit is deterministic and targeted on some signal-state combinations. The paper provides a detailed characterization of the optimal contract and performs a comparative static analysis of signal acquisition strategy and payoffs with respect to enforcement costs and informativeness of the signal. We explore the robustness of the results, including commitment issues. The results are interpreted in light of the observed features of financial contracts, showing that the optimality of the standard debt contract with deterministic audit extends to a setting with random audit.

Auditing Contracts
Auditing Contracts

Author: Andrew D. Chambers

Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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Examines the importance of having formal, effective approaches to negotiating and managing contracts. Provides information on the placing, control, monitoring and post-appraisal of contracts. It is aimed at contract audit specialists in public and private sectors in the UK and overseas.

Optimal Contracts in a Dynamic Costly State Verification Model
Optimal Contracts in a Dynamic Costly State Verification Model

Author: Cyril Monnet

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 45

ISBN-13:

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This paper describes optimal contracts in a dynamic costly state verification model with stochastic monitoring. An agent operates a risky project on behalf of a principal over several periods. Each period, the principal can observe the revenues from the project provided he incurs a fixed cost. We show that an optimal contract exists with the property that, in each period and for every possible revenue announcement by the agent, either the principal claims the entire proceeds from the project or promises to claim nothing in the future. This structure of payments enables the principal to minimize audit costs over the duration of the project. Those optimal contracts are such that the agent's expected income rises with time. Moreover, except in at most one period, the principal claims the entire returns of the project whenever audit occurs. We also provide conditions under which all optimal contracts must satisfy these properties.

Contract Theory
Contract Theory

Author: Patrick Bolton

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2004-12-10

Total Pages: 746

ISBN-13: 9780262025768

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A comprehensive introduction to contract theory, emphasizing common themes and methodologies as well as applications in key areas. Despite the vast research literature on topics relating to contract theory, only a few of the field's core ideas are covered in microeconomics textbooks. This long-awaited book fills the need for a comprehensive textbook on contract theory suitable for use at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It covers the areas of agency theory, information economics, and organization theory, highlighting common themes and methodologies and presenting the main ideas in an accessible way. It also presents many applications in all areas of economics, especially labor economics, industrial organization, and corporate finance. The book emphasizes applications rather than general theorems while providing self-contained, intuitive treatment of the simple models analyzed. In this way, it can also serve as a reference for researchers interested in building contract-theoretic models in applied contexts.The book covers all the major topics in contract theory taught in most graduate courses. It begins by discussing such basic ideas in incentive and information theory as screening, signaling, and moral hazard. Subsequent sections treat multilateral contracting with private information or hidden actions, covering auction theory, bilateral trade under private information, and the theory of the internal organization of firms; long-term contracts with private information or hidden actions; and incomplete contracts, the theory of ownership and control, and contracting with externalities. Each chapter ends with a guide to the relevant literature. Exercises appear in a separate chapter at the end of the book.

Handbook of Insurance
Handbook of Insurance

Author: Georges Dionne

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 980

ISBN-13: 9401006423

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In the 1970's, the research agenda in insurance was dominated by optimal insurance coverage, security design, and equilibrium under conditions of imperfect information. The 1980's saw a growth of theoretical developments including non-expected utility, price volatility, retention capacity, the pricing and design of insurance contracts in the presence of multiple risks, and the liability insurance crisis. The empirical study of information problems, financial derivatives, and large losses due to catastrophic events dominated the research agenda in the 1990's. The Handbook of Insurance provides a single reference source on insurance for professors, researchers, graduate students, regulators, consultants, and practitioners, that reviews the research developments in insurance and its related fields that have occurred over the last thirty years. The book starts with the history and foundations of insurance theory and moves on to review asymmetric information, risk management and insurance pricing, and the industrial organization of insurance markets. The book ends with life insurance, pensions, and economic security. Each chapter has been written by a leading authority in insurance, all contributions have been peer reviewed, and each chapter can be read independently of the others.

The Theory of Corporate Finance
The Theory of Corporate Finance

Author: Jean Tirole

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-08-26

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1400830222

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"Magnificent."—The Economist From the Nobel Prize–winning economist, a groundbreaking and comprehensive account of corporate finance Recent decades have seen great theoretical and empirical advances in the field of corporate finance. Whereas once the subject addressed mainly the financing of corporations—equity, debt, and valuation—today it also embraces crucial issues of governance, liquidity, risk management, relationships between banks and corporations, and the macroeconomic impact of corporations. However, this progress has left in its wake a jumbled array of concepts and models that students are often hard put to make sense of. Here, one of the world's leading economists offers a lucid, unified, and comprehensive introduction to modern corporate finance theory. Jean Tirole builds his landmark book around a single model, using an incentive or contract theory approach. Filling a major gap in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance is an indispensable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as researchers of corporate finance, industrial organization, political economy, development, and macroeconomics. Tirole conveys the organizing principles that structure the analysis of today's key management and public policy issues, such as the reform of corporate governance and auditing; the role of private equity, financial markets, and takeovers; the efficient determination of leverage, dividends, liquidity, and risk management; and the design of managerial incentive packages. He weaves empirical studies into the book's theoretical analysis. And he places the corporation in its broader environment, both microeconomic and macroeconomic, and examines the two-way interaction between the corporate environment and institutions. Setting a new milestone in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance will be the authoritative text for years to come.