In-Uck Park

Delegated Contracting and Corporate Hierarchies

In a typical corporate hierarchy, the manager is delegated the authority to make decisions that set directions for the organization, employ subordinates and contract with external suppliers. This paper explains when such delegation of authority can be optimal, using a model of a firm with three parties: the principal, the manager and the worker. In centralization with two two-tier hierarchies, the principal designs contracts for both agents. In delegation with a three-tier hierarchy, the principal directly contracts with a delegated agent who, in turn, contracts with the other agent. We identify an environment where the principal can benefit from delegating authority to the manager, but not to the worker. Beneficial delegation arises endogenously when delegation motivates the manager to acquire valuable information, which is used for better decision-making and more efficient incentive provision to the worker. We also show how total surplus is distributed in delegation vis-a-vis centralization, document comparative statics results regarding the benefits of delegation and the distribution of total surplus, and discuss when delegation is more likely to dominate centralization.

Overcoming the Coordination Problem: Dynamic Formation of Networks

We analyze a multi-period entry game among privately informed agents who differ with respect to the number of agents who must enter in order for their own entry to be profitable. In each period agents who have not yet joined decide whether to subscribe to a network. There exists a unique equilibrium that approximates any symmetric equilibrium arbitrarily closely as the discount factor approaches one. This resolves the coordination problem. Ex-post efficiency is necessarily achieved asymptotically as the population size grows large. These results do not hold if subscribers can reverse their decisions without cost.

Competitive Planned Obsolescence

We provide a model of planned obsolescence in a competitive market. A feature of the model is that there are configurations where a firm cannot survive in the competitive market unless its product exhibits planned and known obsolescence. This form of obsolescence is complementary to that of existing models and arises from the ability of planned obsolescence to minimize the lemons problem.

Bayes contingent plans

Abstract An intuitively natural consistency condition for contingent plans is necessary and sufficient for a contingent plan to be rationalized by maximization of conditional expected utility. One alternative theory of choice under uncertainty, the weighted-utility theory developed by Chew (1983) does not entail that contingent plans will generally satisfy this condition. Another alternative theory, the minimax theory as formulated by Savage (1972), does entail the consistency condition (at least for singleton-valued plans).

Cheap-Talk Coordination of Entry by Privately Informed Firms

I analyze and compare the effects of sequential and simultaneous cheap-talk communication (e.g., preannouncement of entry) among privately informed potential entrants who then play a normal-form entry game. The first main result is that cheap-talk communication is powerful enough to enable the potential entrants to coordinate on an efficient outcome for each and every contingency. The second is that sequential cheap talk is more dextrous in this task in the sense that it can generate a greater variety of efficient outcomes than simultaneous cheap talk. The precise extent to which it does so is also explained.

Seller Reputation and Trust in Pre-Trade Communication

We characterize the unique equilibrium in which high ability sellers always announce the quality of their items truthfully, in a repeated game model of experienced good markets with adverse selection on a sellers propensity to supply good quality items. In this equilibrium a sellers value function strictly increases in reputation and a sellers type is revealed within finite time. The analysis highlights a new reputation mechanism based on an endogenous complementarity the market places between a sellers honesty in pre-trade communication (trust) and his/her ability to deliver good quality (reputation). As maintaining honesty is less costly for high ability sellers who anticipate less “bad news” to disclose, they can signal their ability by communicating in a more trustworthy manner. Applying this model, we examine the extent to which consumer feedback systems foster trust in online markets, including the possibility that sellers may change identities or exit.

Anti-Limit Pricing

Extending Milgrom and Roberts (1982), we analyze an infinite horizon entry model where an incumbent may use its current price to signal its strength, in order to deter entry. In contrast with conventional limit pricing, we show the entry of weaker firms. We also provide necessary and sufficient conditions for this phenomenon to arise in equilibrium, in the benchmark cases that no second entry is profitable.

Patents As Negotiating Assets: Patenting Versus Secrecy For Startups

We analyse a sequential innovation model and show that relatively narrow patent rights can facilitate a market in which startups’ patents are traded as negotiating assets. In this market, the trade of patents, on top of monopoly profits, conveys an extra surplus from the patents’ capacity to affect future tech‐transfer negotiations. This surplus, which stems from a patents potential ability to exclude infringers and the corresponding enforcement spillovers that patents confer, may incentivise innovations that would not have been possible under trade secrecy, improving social welfare.

Information, Authority, and Corporate Hierarchies

This paper studies a model with one principal and two agents where one agent can gather information that is valuable for the principals project choice and the other agent provides effort to the chosen project. Defining authority as the right to choose a project and contract with the agent who does not directly contract with the principal, we ask when the principal can benefit from delegating authority to one of the agents. We show that beneficial delegation is possible when complete contracts cannot be written and authority is delegated to the information gatherer. The benefits of delegation stem from either efficiency gains or reduction in rent to the information gatherer. This can be viewed as a reasonable portrayal of a typical corporate hierarchy where top managers are delegated the authority to make strategic decisions and to contract with other employees.