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Optimal partnership contracts: Foundation and duality
Author(s) -
Cheng Harrison
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
international journal of economic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.351
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1742-7363
pISSN - 1742-7355
DOI - 10.1111/j.1742-7363.2005.00008.x
Subject(s) - duality (order theory) , foundation (evidence) , general partnership , incentive , mathematical economics , economics , linear programming , mathematical optimization , characterization (materials science) , computer science , microeconomics , mathematics , finance , discrete mathematics , materials science , nanotechnology , archaeology , history
We use the duality in linear programming to solve the problem of optimal contracts with moral hazards. We show the importance of allowing the partners to throw away outputs under some contingencies. A two‐step procedure is used to find the optimal contracts. The first step minimizes the loss from undistributed outputs, and in the second step, a second best solution is found. A characterization of the optimal contracts in two‐by‐two‐by‐two partnership games is offered. Such contracts implement an optimal strategy profile that either has no incentive cost to implement or is near a pure strategy profile.