Contracting under uncertainty: A principal–agent model with ambiguity averse parties

Simon Grant, J. Jude Kline and John Quiggin

Games and Economic Behavior, 2018, vol. 109, issue C, 582-597

Abstract: We introduce linguistic ambiguity into a principal–agent contracting framework. Contracts are drafted in a common language. Nevertheless, the principal and the agent may ultimately disagree about the terms of the contract that apply ex post. We presume that both parties are ambiguity averse and for tractability reasons that their preferences take a recursive constant absolute risk averse (RCARA) form. We consider various dispute resolution regimes and analyze how the optimal dispute resolution regime depends on the ambiguity attitudes of the parties. We also provide an axiomatization of the class of RCARA preferences.

Keywords: Linguistic ambiguity; Principal–agent problem; State-contingent versus output contingent contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825618300319
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:109:y:2018:i:c:p:582-597

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2018.02.008

Access Statistics for this article

Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai

More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().