ECOS 2201 Economics of Strategy and Competition Semester 2, 2022 Problem Set 4
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ECOS 2201 Economics of Strategy and Competition
Semester 2, 2022
Problem Set 4
1. Consider a partnership with 5 people. The output for this partnership is given by y = a1 + a2 + a3 + a4 + a5 where ai is the effort of the i\th partner. Each partner has a cost of effort given by C(ai ) = 4ai(2) .
(a) Suppose the partners decide to share output equally amongst
themselves. How much effort will each partner put in?
(b) Compute the efficient level of effort. Compare the answer to part
1(a).
(c) Suggest a scheme which restores the efficient level of effort in this partnership. You can do this concisely by writing down a few equations.
2. So far in the course we have studied incentive schemes to encourage workers to put in more effort. However, in many jobs, effort is not the most important variable (as an example it is hard to imagine a CEO of a big corporation slacking). In this question we try to apply the basic model in class to the problem of a CEO making acquisitions. Consider a risk neutral firm (shareholder or board) and a risk neutral worker (CEO). The CEO has to make acquisitions for the firm. Let x denote the size of the company being acquired (eg. the number of
employees of the company being acquired). The return to the firm for
an acquisition of size x is given by ax 2 − dx with the parameters a > 0 and d > 0 (if you plot this function, it starts out at 0, increases initially
and then decreases)). Whereas the utility that the CEO gets from each
acquisition is given by hx 2 with h > 0 (if you plot this function it keeps increasing in x -the CEO likes empire building).
(a) Suppose the firm could make acquisitions by itself (the CEO is
not needed). What level of x would it select?
(b) Now consider linear take it or leave it contracts of the form w =
s + px. Once again the CEO has an outside option of u0 . Solve for the optimal p. If you cannot solve this at least say what you think the sign of p should be and the reasons for your conjecture.
3. Salespeople are often compensated on how they have done relative to average sales across other staff . This is even though sales made by other staff are outside the control of the salesperson. Why might this be the case?
2022-09-05