IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/asu/wpaper/2133303.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Aversion, Moral Hazard, and the Principal's Loss

Author

Abstract

In their seminal paper on the principal-agent model with moral hazard, Grossman and Hart (1983) show that the loss to the principal from being unable to observe the agent’s action is increasing in the agent’s degree of absolute risk aversion. Their proof is restricted to the case where the number of observable outcomes is equal to two, and uses an argument which is specific to that case. In this note, we provide a different proof that generalizes their result to any (finite) number of outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Hector Chade & Virginia Vera de Serio, "undated". "Risk Aversion, Moral Hazard, and the Principal's Loss," Working Papers 2133303, Department of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:asu:wpaper:2133303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wpcarey.asu.edu/tools/mytools/pubs_admin/FILES/riskav.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haubrich, Joseph G, 1994. "Risk Aversion, Performance Pay, and the Principal-Agent Problem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 258-276, April.
    2. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1983. "An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 7-45, January.
    3. Paul Milgrom, "undated". "The Envelope Theorems," Working Papers 99016, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel McFadden & Carlos Noton & Pau Olivella, "undated". "Remedies for Sick Insurance," Working Papers 620, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Matthias Lang, 2023. "Stochastic contracts and subjective evaluations," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 54(1), pages 104-134, March.
    3. Flavia Mengarelli & Laura Moretti & Valeria Faralla & Philippe Vindras & Angela Sirigu, 2014. "Economic Decisions for Others: An Exception to Loss Aversion Law," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6, January.
    4. Jung, Jin Yong, 2022. "Effects of changes in preferences in moral hazard problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Resende Filho, Moises de Andrade, 2007. "A Principal-Agent Model for Investigating Traceability Systems Incentives on Food Safety," 105th Seminar, March 8-10, 2007, Bologna, Italy 7897, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Jorge Aseff & Manuel Santos, 2005. "Stock options and managerial optimal contracts," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 26(4), pages 813-837, November.
    3. Moisés de Andrade Resende Filho & Brian L. Buhr, 2006. "A Principal-Agent Model For Evaluating The Economic Value Of A Beef Traceability System: A Case Study With Injection-Site Lesions Control In Fed Cattle In The Us," Anais do XXXIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 34th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 127, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    4. Lee, Hangsuck & Ha, Hongjun & Lee, Minha, 2024. "A sharing rule for multi-period interest-sensitive insurance contracts," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2007. "A Calibratable Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 13372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Joseph G. Haubrich, 2001. "Sharing with a risk-neutral agent," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q I, pages 2-8.
    7. Zhou, Xianming, 1999. "Executive compensation and managerial incentives: A comparison between Canada and the United States1," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 277-301, September.
    8. Ingolf Dittmann & Ernst Maug, 2007. "Lower Salaries and No Options? On the Optimal Structure of Executive Pay," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 303-343, February.
    9. Ivilina Popova & Joseph G. Haubrich, 1998. "Executive compensation: a calibration approach," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 12(3), pages 561-581.
    10. Hermalin, Benjamin E. & Wallace, Nancy E., 2001. "Firm performance and executive compensation in the savings and loan industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 139-170, July.
    11. George-Levi Gayle & Robert A. Miller, 2009. "Has Moral Hazard Become a More Important Factor in Managerial Compensation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1740-1769, December.
    12. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    13. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Is CEO Pay Really Inefficient? A Survey of New Optimal Contracting Theories," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 15(3), pages 486-496, June.
    14. Ingolf Dittmann & Ernst Maug & Oliver Spalt, 2010. "Sticks or Carrots? Optimal CEO Compensation when Managers Are Loss Averse," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2015-2050, December.
    15. Christopher Armstrong & David Larcker & Che-Lin Su, 2007. "Stock Options and Chief Executive Compensation," Discussion Papers 1447, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    16. Óscar Gutiérrez & Vicente Salas-Fumás, 2014. "Options in Agency with Binary Uncertainty," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(2), pages 218-236, March.
    17. Lee Biggerstaff & David C. Cicero & Andy Puckett, 2017. "FORE! An Analysis of CEO Shirking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2302-2322, July.
    18. John Quiggin, 2001. "Economic solubility of the agency problem," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(4), pages 1-6.
    19. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2485-2563 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Arantxa Jarque, 2008. "CEO compensation : trends, market changes, and regulation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Sum), pages 265-300.
    21. Hugo Hopenhayn & Arantxa Jarque, 2006. "Moral Hazard and Persistence," 2006 Meeting Papers 670, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:asu:wpaper:2133303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Steve Salik (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deasuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.