Broiler Production Contracts as a Multi‐Agent Problem: Common Risk, Incentives and Heterogeneity
用委托代理框架解释肉鸡行业两个谜题：加工商为何控制养殖户投入，以及为何用统计上不充分的估计量计算报酬。对研究农业合同与激励的学者有用。
Abstract The broiler industry presents two puzzles regarding production contracts: why do processors control growers' inputs, and why do they use a statistically insufficient estimator to calculate growers' compensation? This paper provides an agency theoretic framework that explains these puzzles in terms of processors' response to grower heterogeneity and production risk and to grower risk aversion. Processors control inputs to reduce the information rents paid to agents. By forcing agents to bear additional income risk through the use of an imprecise estimator, processors can increase profits, due to the combined moral hazard‐adverse selection nature of the informational problem.