报告题目：A dynamic Markov tournament model of an up-and-down competition for status
报告人：美国田纳西大学Scott Gilpatric副教授
报告时间：2014年4月24日（周四）上午10:00
报告地点：三教102
组织部门：经济学系
主持人：孔令丞教授

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报告人简介：Scott Gilpatric，美国田纳西大学经济学系副教授，主要研究领域为产业组织理论、行为经济学、公共政策。论文发表在RAND Journal of Economics, Marketing Science, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Urban Economics, Southern Economic Journal等期刊。

论文摘要：We develop a dynamic Markov model to capture the incentives in indefinitely-repeated tournaments in labor market settings where agents compete both to “move up” as well as to avoid a “move down”. Such settings naturally arise regardless of whether explicit performance incentives or an organizational hierarchy exist. We show that when monetary incentives are available the dynamic tournament approaches the first-best outcome, but we also allow for the possibility that the principal’s only available incentive mechanism is the assignment of undesirable tasks to agents who are out-of-favor. Inability to change salaries or demote workers is common for public organizations, such as government agencies and schools. For instance, a school principal may not be able to monetarily reward or sanction teachers based on performance, but typically has discretion within the labor contract to vary class assignments and resources such as teacher’s aides. We model agents as being either in or out of favor with the principal in any given period; those who are out of favor are assigned more undesirable tasks. The prize of the tournament is the difference between groups (in favor and out of favor) in the present value of the agent’s expected utility. We assume that agents’ effort cost of completing contractible tasks is such that these costs are minimized by assigning equally burdensome tasks to all agents. Therefore the principal can motivate non-contractible effort through differential task assignment, but this entails an efficiency cost. The model demonstrates that employers may seek flexibility to vary task assignments in labor contracts not only to adapt to changing circumstances, but also to enable them to motivate non-contractible effort when agents’ compensation in fixed.