Implicit Cost Allocation and Bidding for Contracts
研究企业在同时竞标多个项目时，如何最优地分摊增量固定成本，提出一种“隐性”成本分摊方法，并证明该方法在事前能完全分摊固定成本。
The question of how, or even whether, indirect costs should be allocated for pricing decisions has been controversial and unresolved. This paper takes a step toward answering this question by examining the special case of a firm that must incur incremental fixed costs to complete any or all of the several projects for which it is submitting simultaneous bids. An independent private-values bidding model is employed to endogenously determine an optimal cost allocation; we term such a cost allocation “implicit.” The optimal implicit fixed cost allocation is shown to fully allocate fixed costs ex ante, although the fixed costs may be under, over, or exactly allocated ex post.