Roland Strausz

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | HU Berlin · Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

We study monopolistic screening when some consumers are data sensitive and incur a privacy cost if their purchase reveals information to the monopolist. The monopolist discriminates between data-sensitive and classical consumers using privacy mechanisms that consist of a direct mechanism and a privacy option. A privacy mechanism is optimal for larg...

We study information flows in an organization with a top management (principal) and multiple subunits (agents) with private information that determines the organization's overall efficiency. Under centralized communication, eliciting the agents' information may induce the principal to manipulate aggregate information, which obstructs an effective u...

We study contracting between a public good provider and users with private valuations of the good. We show that, once the provider extracts the users' private information, she benefits from manipulating the collective information received from all users when communicating with them. We derive conditions under which such manipulation determines the...

We study (energy) markets with dirty production and lumpy entry costs of clean production (renewables). For intermediate entry costs, markets yield inefficient production and inefficient entry. A mix of three popular regulatory instruments—polluter taxation, feed-in subsidies for renewables, and consumption taxation—cannot correct these market fail...

Uncertainty in election outcomes generates politically induced regulatory risk. For monopoly regulation, political parties’ risk attitudes towards such risk depend on a fluctuation effect that hurts both parties and an output–expansion effect that benefits at least one party. Irrespective of the parties’ risk attitudes, political parties have incen...

We show that in sequential screening problems with ex post participation constraints, optimal contracts elicit the agent’s pay-off irrelevant ex ante information when the principal and agent can trade multiple units, in contrast to when they can trade a single unit only. The difference arises because with multiple units, the principal can price eac...

Strategic delegation to an independent regulator with a pure consumer standard improves dynamic regulation by mitigating ratchet effects associated with short term contracting. A pure consumer standard alleviates the regulator’s myopic temptation to raise output after learning the firm is inefficient. Anticipating this tougher regulatory behavior,...

What is the best way to auction an asset? How should a group of people organize themselves to ensure the best provision of public goods? How should exchanges be organized? This book addresses these questions and more through an exploration of the economic theory of mechanism design. Mechanism design is reverse game theory. Whereas game theory takes...

We introduce ex post participation constraints in the standard sequential screening model. This captures the presence of consumer withdrawal rights as, for instance, mandated by European Union regulation of “distance sales contracts”. With such additional constraints, the optimal contract is static and, unlike with only ex ante participation constr...

We study ex post information rents in sequential screening models where the agent receives private ex ante and ex post information. The principal has to pay ex post information rents for preventing the agent to coordinate lies about his ex ante and ex post information. When the agent's ex ante information is discrete, these rents are positive, wher...

A central issue in climate policy is the question whether long-term targets for greenhouse gas emissions should be adopted. This paper analyzes strategic effects related to the timing of such commitments. Using a two-country model, we identify a redistributive effect that undermines long-term cooperation when countries are asymmetric and side payme...

Using an agency model, we show how delegation, by generating additional private information, improves dynamic incentives under limited commitment. It circumvents ratchet effects and facilitates the revelation of persistent private information through two effects: a play-hardball effect, which mitigates an efficient agent's ratchet incentive, and a...

This paper develops the idea that obsolescence acts as an incentive device to provide quality for experience goods. The argument is that obsolescence affects the frequency at which consumers repurchase products and may punish producers for a lack of quality. A higher rate of obsolescence enables a firm to convince its consumers that it provides hig...

We develop a model to analyze the determinants and effects of an endogenous imperfect transferability of human capital on natives and immigrants. The model reveals that high migration flows and high skill-transferability are mutually interdependent. Moreover, we show that high mobility within a Federation is necessary to attract highly skilled immi...

This paper offers a new type of explanation for economic institutions as playing the role of mediators in the sense of Myerson (1985) to facilitate communication in contracting settings with ex ante asymmetric information and limited commitment. It derives necessary and sufficient conditions under which mediation is strictly helpful and provides a...

This paper considers the canonical sequential screening model and shows that when the agent has an ex post outside option, the principal does not benefit from eliciting the agent's information sequentially. Unlike in the standard model without ex post outside options, the optimal contract is static and conditions only on the agent's aggregate final...

This paper invalidates the claim that a decreasing concavity of the agent's utility function with type guarantees the optimality of deterministic mechanisms in principal–agent settings with adverse selection and quasi– linear utilities. Subsequently, it readdresses the question of the optimality of deterministic mechanisms. It demonstrates that an...

In a finitely repeated principal agent relationship with adverse selection I study (exogenous) interim information that is revealed during a long term relationship. Interim information mitigates adverse selection. Verifiability, measured by the cost of signal manipulation, and the signal's informativeness determine the use and effectiveness of inte...

We amend an error in [S. Parreiras, Correlated information, mechanism design and informational rents, J. Econ. Theory 123 (2005) 210–217]. Consequently, it is in general not possible to reinterpret a mechanism design model that violates the spanning condition of Crémer and McLean [J. Crémer, R. McLean, Full extraction of the surplus in bayesian, do...

The paper studies procurement contracts with pre-project investigations in the presence of adverse selection and moral hazard. To model the procurer's problem, we extend a standard sequential screening model to endogenous information acquisition with moral hazard. The optimal contract displays systematic distortions in information acquisition. Due...

I develop a tractable framework to study regulatory risk under optimal monopoly regulation. It captures increasing regulatory risk as mean‐preserving spreads of two regulatory variables: weights attached to profits and costs of public funds. The regulator's reaction to regulatory risk depends on the curvature of demand. For convex (concave) demand,...

The paper studies procurement contracts with pre-project investigations in the presence of adverse selection and moral hazard. To model the procurer's problem, we extend a standard sequential screening model to endogenous information acquisition with moral hazard. The optimal contract displays systematic distortions in information acquisition. Due...

We study the potential of cooperation in global emission abatements with multiple externalities. Using a two-country model without side-payments, we identify the strategic effects under different timing regimes of cooperation. We obtain a positive complementarity effect of long-term cooperation in abatement on R&D levels that boosts potential bene?...

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer or the seller? Our answer --- the seller --- follows from a non--trivial analysis revealing a clear intuition. Buyer--induced certification acts as an inspection device, whence seller--induced certification acts as a signalling de...

We study the optimal hierarchical structure of an organization under limited commit- ment. The organization cannot make a long term commitment to wages and output levels, while it can commit to its hierarchical structure. We show that the optimal hierarchical structure is horizontal when it is highly likely that the employees are efficient or ineff...

Without a multiplicative interaction between durability and other quality attributes Swan's (1970) independence result is violated, even with constant marginal costs. Subsequent distortions are aligned when the marginal cost of quality does not increase too much with durability.

We develop a model to analyze the determinants and effects of an endogenous imperfect transferability of human capital on natives and immigrants. The model reveals that high migration flows and high skill-transferability are mutually interdependent. Moreover, we show that high mobility within a Federation is necessary to attract highly skilled immi...

We develop a model of cross-country migration on the labor markets in Europe and the U.S. In both federations, individuals differ in human capital, and countries differ with regard to the state of the economy. Individuals are more productive in the countries with the better state of the economy. In the U.S., human capital is fully transferable acro...

Stressing the multi-dimensional character of quality, I propose a new theory of planned obsolescence as an incentive device that benefits consumers. I argue that planned obsolescence increases the frequency of repurchases and, therefore, enables consumers to punish producers faster for a lack of overall quality. This strengthens the producers' ince...

This paper studies the interplay between advice and agency costs in entrepreneurial financing. We show that advise may exacerbate agency problems, because the agent may use it at the investor's expense and thereby hurt investors. Depending on the magnitude of the agency problem, optimal financing relationship may induce full, partial, or no advice....

Time and value are related concepts that influence human behaviour. Although classical topics in human thinking throughout the ages, few environmental economic non-market valuation studies have attempted to link the two concepts. Economists have estimated non-market environmental values in monetary terms for over 30 years. This history of valuation...

We develop a model to show that transparent accounting can worsen the asset substitution effect of debt. This negative effect can outweigh the usual positive effect of transparency. We demonstrate this point by comparing pure historical cost accounting to the conservatively skewed accounting regime of lower-of-cost-or-market (LCM). In a market with...

Drawing from a case study on upstream supply procurement in the automotive industry, we model the interaction between a monopolis-tic supplier and a monopolistic buyer when the quality of the product procured is unknown to the buyer. If procured by the seller a certifier can credibly signal quality to the buyer. If procured by the buyer, cer-tifica...

The paper studies procurement contracts with pre--project investigations under hidden information and hidden action. The principal generally benefits from inducing the agent to conduct pre--project investigations to avoid cost overruns and false project cancelations. Due to a rent effect, hidden information leads to systematic distortions in inform...

Time and value are related concepts that influence human behaviour. Although classical topics in human thinking throughout the ages, few environmental economic non-market valuation studies have attempted to link the two concepts. Economists have estimated non-market environmental values in monetary terms for over 30 years. This history of valuation...

We develop a model to analyze the determinants and effects of an endogenous imperfect transferability of human capital on natives and immigrants. The model reveals that high migration flows and high skill-transferability are mutually interdependent. Moreover, we show that high mobility within a Federation is necessary to attract highly skilled immi...

We develop a model to show that cartels that produce goods with lower durability are easier to sustain implicitly. This observation gen- erates the following results: 1) implicit cartels have an incentive to pro- duce goods with an inefficiently low level of durability; 2) a monopoly or explicit cartel is welfare superior to an implicit cartel; 3)...

This paper investigates how additional ex post private information by the agent affects the equilibrium outcome of the monopolistic screening model. In general, the principal always weakly benefits when the agent receives additional private information after the contracting stage. Instead, both the agent's equilibrium payoffs and allocative efficie...

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi-cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: (1) a competition effect that raises quality, (2) a free-rider effect that lowers quality, and (3) a composition effect that influences...

This paper provides new analytical tools for studying principal-agent problems with adverse selection and limited commitment. By allowing the principal to use general communication devices we overcome the literature's common, but overly restrictive focus on one-shot, direct communication. In addition, general communication devices solve two fundame...

I evaluate a new German regulation that requires retail discounters to guarantee the availability of their products in bargain sales. The regulation is meant to prevent loss leaders. Retailers undermine the regulation's rationale by claiming that rationing is due to demand uncertainty. This paper shows that under demand uncertainty the regulation h...

This paper shows that, contrary to what is generally believed, decreasing concavity of the agent's utility function with respect to the screening variable is not sufficient to ensure that stochastic mechanisms are suboptimal. The paper demonstrates, however, that they are suboptimal whenever the optimal deterministic mechanism exhibits no bunching....

For mechanism design with independent values, we identify a subclass of Vickrey--Clarke--Groves (VCG) mechanisms that induce efficient ex ante investments even with externalities. The Vickrey second price auction does not belong to this class.

We analyze the two goals behind the European Bologna Process of increasing student mobility: enabling graduates to develop multi–cultural skills and increasing the quality of universities. We isolate three effects: 1) a competition effect that raises quality; 2) a free rider effect that lowers quality; 3) a composition effect that influences the re...

"We study how long-term contracts condition on a natural flow of information that reduces asymmetric information over time. If such interim information is verifiable, optimal contracts achieve the first best. Under nonverifiability, the optimal contract depends on the signal's accuracy and timing. Introducing signal manipulation as a parameterizati...

This paper offers an explanation why a principal may demand too much paperwork from a subordinate: Due to limited liability and moral hazard a principal is unable to appropriate all rents. Internal paperwork allows a more accurate monitoring of the agent and enables the principal to appropriate a larger part of the agent's rent. In her decision the...

We argue that ordinary shares undermine any inherent commitment of its holders to resist renegotiating away ex post inefficiencies. Yet, in a dynamic adverse selection problem, such ex post inefficiencies are optimal from an ex ante point of view. We show that shareholders may use a manager in combination with a golden parachute (managerial severan...

This paper provides a survey on studies that analyze the macroeconomic effects of intellectual property rights (IPR). The first part of this paper introduces different patent policy instruments and reviews their effects on R&D and economic growth. This part also discusses the distortionary effects and distributional consequences of IPR protection a...

This paper derives conditions under which reputation enables certifiers to resist capture. These conditions alone have strong implications for the industrial organization of certification markets: (1) Honest certification requires high prices that may even exceed the static monopoly price. (2) Honest certification exhibits economies of scale and co...

This paper studies the structure of optimal finance contracts in an agency model of outside finance, when investors possess private information. We show that, depending on the intensity of the entrepreneur's moral hazard problem, optimal contracts induce full, partial, or no revelation of the investor's private information. A partial or nonrevelati...

Without Abstract

Nous avons essayé à travers ce travail de vérifier dans le cadre du modèle de la juste valeur, la compatibilité de la comptabilité de couverture préconisée par la norme IAS 39 aux objectifs de la réglementation prudentielle sur les fonds propres bancaires. Nos conclusions soutiennent que la macro-couverture est l’approche la plus adéquate à l’activ...

This paper studies a regulation of German bargain sales to reduce rationing. Analyzing bargain sales as a monopoly under uncertain demand, I show that bargain sales lead either to rationing or over-production. Regulating the monopolist by forcing him to guarantee the availability of bargains benefits consumers at the expense of the monopolist. Sinc...

This note shows: (1) the classical revelation principle does not hold for deterministic mechanisms, (2) with one agent, a revelation principle in terms of payoffs holds, and (3) with more than one agent the result fails and direct mechanisms may by suboptimal.

This paper extends the revelation principle to environments in which the mechanism designer cannot fully commit to the outcome induced by the mechanism. We show that he may optimally use a direct mechanism under which truthful revelation is an optimal strategy for the agent. In contrast with the conventional revelation principle, however, the agent...

This paper studies interim randomization in contracting settings with multi-sided incentive problems. More specifically, we show that in a principal-agent model with auditing the principal mitigates a non-contractibility of auditing by conditioning the contract on a random signal that is revealed at an interim stage of play. Optimal contracts are t...

We consider mechanism design problems with n agents when the mechanism designer cannot fully commit to an allocation function. With a single agent (n=1) optimal mechanisms can always be represented by direct mechanisms, under which each agent’s message set is the set of his possible types [Bester, H., Strausz, R., 2000. Contracting with imperfect c...

We study the effectiveness of mediators in situations of conflict. In a game of cheap talk a principal may employ a mediator whose task is to gather information and make non--binding proposals. We show that mediators facilitate information transmission and are helpful if and only if the likelihood of a conflict of interest is strictly positive but...

Abstract. This paper shows that in a political economy with repeated elections governments that possess full commitment behave as if their commitment is limited. Two different endogenous versions of the ratchet effect obtain: If contracts of previous governments tie newly elected governments, governments are unable to resist renegotiation. If previ...

We consider sequential partnerships in which agents obtain non-verifiable information about the actions taken by previous agents. For such partnerships a budget-balanced sharing rule exists that induces efficient production. The sharing rule has many desirable features: (1) it uniquely implements efficient production, (2) it does not rely on messag...

This paper studies non-contractibility of a contract designer's actions in an agency model with costly monitoring. It shows that non-contractibility may lead to an explicit randomness, which is not optimal under full contractibility. The randomness mitigates non-contractibility. Its effectiveness increases with the ex post deducibility of the non-c...

This paper studies a principal-agent relationship in which either the principal or a supervisor can monitor the agent's hidden action by the use of identical monitoring technologies. We assume that signals are private information and commitment to monitoring is not possible. We show that delegation of monitoring is profitable. With delegation the p...

The authors describe a principal-supervisor-agent relationship in which agent and supervisor may collude. To prevent collusion, the principal may contract on a noisy signal which is correlated with the occurrence of collusion. When the signal is informative enough, the principal uses it and no collusion occurs in equilibrium. These contracts, howev...

This paper offers an explanation why governments have limited commitment and are susceptible to the ratchet effect. It analyzes a two period model in which a government with full commitment regulates a firm. Each period is predated by an election. If contracts of previous governments tie newly elected governments, governments end up being unable to...

This paper describes a principal-agent relationship with a supervisor who has information about the agent. The agent and the supervisor have the possibility to collude and misinform the principal. In accordance with the existing literature there exists an optimal contract which excludes collusion in equilibrium. The optimal contract exhibits, howev...

This paper studies a principal-agent relationship with moral hazard in which the principal or the supervisor can monitor the agent's hidden action by using identical monitoring technologies. The paper shows that delegation of monitoring to the supervisor is profitable because of two effects. With delegation the principal can better regulate the inc...

"We develop a model to study the interplay between advice and agency costs in entrepreneurial financing. We demonstrate a tension between the entrepreneur's motivation for effort and the investor's willingness to finance the project. Advice to the entrepreneur exacerbates this tension. Consequently, optimal financing contracts may involve full, par...

The paper studies information acquisition in public procurement to mitigate imple- mentation errors that arise when production costs are uncertain ex ante. The principal faces three incentive problems: ex ante and ex post information revelation and information acquisition. Optimal contracts are nevertheless characterized by simple menus, including...

Viscusi (1978) shows how, in markets with quality uncertainty, perfect certification results in separation from top down due to an unraveling process similar to Akerlof (1970). De and Nabar (1991) argue that imperfect certification prevents unraveling so that equilibria with full separation do not exist. This note shows that, if one considers the b...

Intellectual property rights may be generated in registration or ex-amination systems. In registration systems the right is held valid until it is revoked in an administrative or court challenge. In examination systems, the examination outcome determines validity. In the first system, validation operates as an inspection device, by which the po-ten...

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie University, Diss., 1997.

In this paper, I offer a theoretical explanation of the robust gender differences in educational achievement distributions of school children. I consider a shot cheap talk game with two different types of senders (biased teachers and fair teachers), two types of receivers (normal and special pupils) and uncertainty about the sender type on the side...

We study the reasons and conditions under which mediation is beneficial when a principal needs information from an agent to implement an action. Assuming a strong form of limited commitment, the principal may employ a mediator who gathers information and makes non--binding proposals. We show that a partial revelation of information is more effectiv...

This paper considers a team in which production takes place sequentially and in which agents observe the actions taken by previous agents. We show that for such teams sharing rules exist which are balanced and induce efficient production as the unique equilibrium outcome. This in contrast to team structures studied by Holmström (1982) in which agen...