Optimal Payment Contracts in Agent-Owner Relationship

대리인-선주간의 최적보상계약에 관한 연구

This article discussed the characteristics of several Pareto-optimal incentive contracts between owner and labor, more specifically, four situations: reporting output jointly observable by labor ana owner; reporting both output and effort; incorporating other endogenous elements (like capital) that affect the production process and Pareto-optimal fee schedules; and ascertaining the effects of private pre-decision information private- decision information, and per-contact informational asymmetries. Also presented were several extensions of the basic contractual model, and the different components of agency costs associated with labor-owner contractual relations. In a single-period model, the agency problem exists because the uncertainty prevents the owner from using the cash flow to determine unambiguously the labor's action. Holmstrom(1979) suggests that "when the same situation repeats itself over time, the effects of uncertainty tend to be reduced and dystunctional behavior is more accurately revealed, thus alleviating the problem of moral hazard. " Under these conditions, if the labor selects the first-best level of effect in each period, the cash flow will be independent and identically distributed over time. As the number of periods increases, the variance of the labows average output, if he selects the first-best level of effort in each period, gets smaller. Note that for this diversification effect to occur, it is necessary that the owner evaluate the labor's effort over the entire history of his employment, rather than evaluate each period's performance separately. Radner(1980) and Rubinstein and Yaari(1980) consider the extreme case in which there are an infinite number of observations. They show that the owner can eventually detect and systematic shirking on the part of the labor by comparing the labor's average output with what would be expected if the labor had been selecting the first-best level of effort in each period. In a dynamic model with incentive problems we have demonstrated that the labor's second-period compensation will depend on his first-period performance. This allows the owner to diversify away some of the uncertainty surrounding the labor's actions. In addition, this allows the owner to smooth the labor's income over time by spreading the risk of the first-period outcome over both periods. At least some unexplored avenves in this area invite future accounting research: situations where owner has different incompatible objectives and negotiates a contract with labor; circumstances in which owner deals with multiple objectives and negotiates contracts with several labors simultaneously; the value of costly accounting information systems and communication in establishing, Pareto-optimal incentive contracts, and the value and effects of inside information, Thorough theoretical or empirical research on each of these topics not only would increase our knowledge about the role and significance of accounting information but could also provide explanations of the inherent differences among various organizations and in their economic behavior. behavior.