Agent's Optimal Response and the Performance of Step-wise Incentive Contract

doi:10.12005/orms.2021.0028

Operations Research and Management Science ›› 2021, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (1): 198-203.DOI: 10.12005/orms.2021.0028

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Agent's Optimal Response and the Performance of Step-wise Incentive Contract

GU Chao-cheng¹, ZHOU Zi-xuan¹, DENG Shi-ming², LI Yan-hai³

1. School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China;
2. School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan430074, China;
3. School of Economics and Management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China

Received:2016-05-04 Online:2021-01-25

阶梯激励合约下代理人行为与合约激励效果

顾超成¹, 周子轩¹, 邓世名², 李沿海³

1.暨南大学管理学院,广东广州 510632;
2.华中科技大学管理学院,湖北武汉 430074;
3.福州大学经济与管理学院,福建福州 350116

通讯作者: 李沿海(1988-),男,湖北汉川人,讲师,研究方向为供应链管理;邓世名(1972-) ,男,北京人,教授,博士生导师,研究方向为合同设计。
作者简介:顾超成(1988-),男,湖北浠水人,讲师,研究方向为机制设计;周子轩(1999-),男,贵州遵义人,本科生。
基金资助:
国家自然科学基金资助项目(71801111,72001044,71671075);广东省基础与应用基础研究基金项目(2020A1515011162);广东省软科学研究计划项目(2020A1010020035);广州市哲学社会科学发展“十三五”规划项目(2020GZGJ106)

Abstract

Abstract: This paper investigates an agent's response to a simple stepwiseincentive contract and the optimal contract design. We characterize agent's optimal effortunder a general demand distribution and utility function. For an agent with concave utility, athreshold exists such that the agent's optimal effort switches from zero to a higher level if the incentivebonus exceeds this threshold. Further, this bonus threshold increases with the performancetarget and agent's marginal cost. The results stress the importance of identifying how bonus incentiveshould be coordinated with performance target in designing an effective step-wise incentivecontract. When agents are risk-averse, we show that the step-wise contract always outperforms alinear contract or piece-wise linear threshold contract if the performance of the agent only dependson his effort.

Key words: step-wise incentive contract, threshold performance incentive, principal-agent theory, linear contract

摘要： 基于委托代理理论研究了阶梯激励合约下的代理人行为,并从委托人角度探讨了最优合约设计的问题。在一般市场需求分布和代理人效用函数下,代理人的效用可能是其努力水平的双峰函数,且存在一个阈值使得当合约绩效奖励超过该阈值时,代理人的努力水平“跳跃式”增加。通过比较阶梯激励合约与其他两类激励合约发现,当代理人是风险厌恶型且代理人的产出完全依赖于其努力水平,委托人总是更偏好阶梯激励合约。

关键词: 阶梯激励合约, 绩效目标激励合约, 委托代理, 线性激励合约

CLC Number:

F272

GU Chao-cheng, ZHOU Zi-xuan, DENG Shi-ming, LI Yan-hai. Agent's Optimal Response and the Performance of Step-wise Incentive Contract[J]. Operations Research and Management Science, 2021, 30(1): 198-203.

顾超成, 周子轩, 邓世名, 李沿海. 阶梯激励合约下代理人行为与合约激励效果[J]. 运筹与管理, 2021, 30(1): 198-203.

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Agent's Optimal Response and the Performance of Step-wise Incentive Contract

阶梯激励合约下代理人行为与合约激励效果

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