Stage‐Gate Contracts to Screen Agents with Inside Information
研究了在研发外包中，当代理人努力不可观察且拥有内部信息时，委托人如何设计阶段门合同来抵消信息不对称，并发现代理人需支付前期买断费。
ABSTRACT Stage‐gate contracts are common in R&D projects, and outsourcing of R&D (from a principal to an agent) is becoming more prevalent. We explore how the principal can best formulate an outsourcing contract when the agent's effort is unobservable (moral hazard) and the agent has inside information (adverse selection) in a stage‐gate setting with two distinct stages. We find that the stage‐gate contract can help offset the information asymmetry and that the agent pays an upfront buy‐in.