在契约理论的研究中,行为经济学关注问题的考虑日益受到重视。
特推荐几篇这方面的重要文献
一、CONTRACT DESIGN AND SELF-CONTROL THEORY AND EVIDENCE
Quarterly Journal of Economics 2004 119(2): 353-402.
STEFANO DELLAVIGNA AND ULRIKE MALMENDIER
摘要:How do rational firms respond to consumer biases? In this paper we analyze the profit-maximizing contract design of firms if consumers have time-inconsistent preferences and are partially naive about it. We consider markets for two types of goods: goods with immediate costs and delayed benefits (investment goods) such as health club attendance, and goods with immediate benefits and delayed costs (leisure goods) such as credit card-financed consumption. We establish three features of the profit-maximizing contract design with partially naive time-inconsistent consumers. First, firms price investment goods below marginal cost. Second, firms price leisure goods above marginal cost. Third, for all types of goods firms introduce switching costs and charge back-loaded fees. The contractual design targets consumer misperception of future consumption and underestimation of the renewal probability. The predictions of the theory match the empirical contract design in the credit card, gambling, health club, life insurance, mail order, mobile phone, and vacation time-sharing industries. We also show that time inconsistency has adverse effects on consumer welfare only if consumers are naive.
【We thank four exceptional referees, George Baker, Daniel Benjamin, Drew Fudenberg, Luis Garicano, Jerry Green, Oliver Hart, Caroline Hoxby, Markus Mo¨bius, Daniele Paserman, Ben Polak, Andrei Shleifer, and in particular Philippe Aghion, Edward Glaeser, Lawrence Katz, and David Laibson. We received helpful comments from participants of seminars at the Econometric Society Summer Meeting 2001, AEA Meeting 2002, the Behavioral Public Finance Conference 2003, the University of California at Berkeley, Humboldt University (Berlin), Bonn University, Boston University, Harvard University, INSEAD, University of Maryland (College Park), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Northwestern, Stanford, Yale, and Zurich universities. Nageeb Ali, Saurabh Bhargava, Madhav Chandrasekher, Tricia Glynn, Ming Mai, Boris Nenchev, and Christine Yee provided excellent research assistance. For financial support, DellaVigna thanks Bank of Italy and Harvard University, and Malmendier thanks Harvard University and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).】
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