Regulating a risk-averse firm under incomplete information

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 34 - Trang 75-85 - 2008
Chifeng Dai1
1Department of Economics, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

Tóm tắt

We examine the optimal regulatory policy for a risk-averse firm when the firm is imperfectly informed about its efficiency parameter for a project at the time of contracting. The firm’s risk aversion shifts the optimal regulatory policy from a fixed-price contract to a cost-plus contract. The optimal regulatory policy entails undereffort by an inefficient firm as in Laffont and Tirole (J Polit Econ 94(3):614–641, 1986) and the effort distortion increases as the firm becomes more risk-averse. Further, the regulator benefits from sequential contracting with the firm where the firm chooses contract terms gradually as it acquires information, albeit the benefit diminishes as the firm becomes more risk-averse.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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