Noemie Cabau (Co-author: Arseniy Samsonov) will present their paper “Signaling Effort: Information Structures in a Principal-Agent model” on February 19th at 10:00 AM, room QA405.
Abstract:
We propose a principal-agent model with moral hazard and non-contractible output where the agent can design a signal about his effort. If there is no signal besides the agent’s, the latter appropriates the first best surplus in every equilibrium. If there is an external signal, the principal can offer a default contract conditioned on it. The agent’s incentive to provide further information stems from the trade-off between lowering the expected punishment and decreasing the expected reward. We show that the agent’s equilibrium signal is informative if he faces a severe and likely punishment under the default contract. We find that the agent benefits from correlating his signal to the outside one and that a more precise external signal may not benefit the principal.