Can Starving Start‐ups Beat Fat Labs? A Bandit Model of Innovation with Endogenous Financing Constraint*
研究委托人如何通过控制实验规模来激励代理人选择创新项目，发现当代理人可私下选择项目新颖性时，委托人会限制资金以鼓励冒险，并在早期成功后快速扩大规模。
Abstract Is there any such thing as too much capital when it comes to the financing of innovative projects? We study a principal–agent model in which the principal chooses the scale of the experiment, and the agent privately observes the outcome realizations and can privately choose the novelty of the project. When the agent has private access to a safe but non‐innovative project, the principal starves the agent of funds to incentivize risk‐taking. The principal quickly scales up after early successes, and can tolerate early failures. If the principal is equally informed about the outcome, then the agent is well‐resourced, resembling a large research and development department.