The construction industry is a complex sector that places high demands on project management, planning, and implementation. Significant progress has been made in recent decades regarding the delivery of extensive construction projects, including the adoption of new building techniques, improved risk management systems, and enhanced safety measures. However, a lack of efficiency persists in the construction industry in many countries. This is due to issues within projects, such as time and cost overruns, conflicts among stakeholders, limitations in productivity improvement, quality development, and inadequate customer satisfaction. Following this, many researchers and society at large have called for a change in attitudes, behavior, and practices to increase the chances of successful construction projects to improve the result of the final products. With increased complexity, uncertainty, and time constraints in construction projects, there has been a growing need for collaboration among various project stakeholders. The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the choices made by clients in the procurement process and what contractors prefer. Based on other studies finding that collaborative procurement procedures enhance project performance, this thesis wants to analyze clients’ and contractors’ views regarding collaborative procurement procedures. Additionally, moral-hazard is a component of procurement strategies and contracts, particularly in more complex transactions that involve interaction, which significantly affects the construction industry. Therefore, it is an important aspect to look at how the construction industry works to prevent the emergence of moral-hazard. Based on semi-structured interviews conducted with nine respondents, comprising of five respondents from the contractor side, three from the client side, and one consultant. It has provided insight into how collaboration and moral hazard are perceived. We can conclude that the client's choice of procedure in the procurement process is often closely linked to the selected form of contract. When clients select a form of contract or when contractors submit bids, it appears to be based on the company's expertise, tradition, or what best suits the project. Those who feel skilled or comfortable with partnering tend to choose partnering more frequently. The strategic choices are also shaped by a systematic and thoughtful decision-making process, consciously or unconsciously, to reduce the risk of opportunistic behavior that may occur.

This dissertation studies information economics in strategic and decision settings. In Chapter 1, I introduce flexible endogenous monitoring into dynamic moral hazard. A principal can commit to not only an employment plan but also the monitoring technology to incentivize dynamic effort from an agent. Optimal monitoring follows a Poisson process that produces rare informative signals, and the optimal employment plan features decreasing turnover. To incentivize persistent effort, the Poisson monitoring takes the form of "bad news'' that leads to immediate termination. Monitoring is non-stationary: the bad news becomes more precise and less frequent. In Chapter 2, which is joint work with Qingmin Liu, we analyze a model of strategic exploration in which competing players independently explore a set of alternatives. The model features a multiple-player multiple-armed bandit problem and captures a strategic trade-off between preemption---covert exploration of alternatives that the opponent will explore in the future---and prioritization---exploration of the most promising alternatives. Our results explain how the strategic trade-off shapes equilibrium behaviors and outcomes, e.g., in technology races between superpowers and R&D competitions between firms. We show that players compete on the same set of alternatives, leading to duplicated exploration from start to finish, and they explore alternatives that are a priori less promising before more promising ones are exhausted. In Chapter 3, I study how a forward-looking decision maker experiments on unknown alternatives of spatially correlated utilities, modeled by a Brownian motion so that similar alternatives yield similar utilities. For example, a firm experiments on its size that yields unknown, spatially correlated profitability. Experimentation trades off the opportunity cost of exploitation for the indirect inference from the explored alternatives to unknown ones. The optimal strategy is to explore unknown alternatives and then exploit the best known alternative when the explored becomes sufficiently worse than the best. The decision maker explores more quickly as the explored alternative worsens. My model predicts the conditional Gibrat's law and linear relation between firm size and profitability.

Die vorliegende Dissertation umfasst drei Forschungspapiere, welche sich mit folgenden Bankenthemen beschäftigen: Fehl-/Anreize und Risikoübernahme, Ertragssteuerung und die Regulierung von Aufsichtsräten. „Do cooperative banks suffer from moral hazard behaviour? Evidence in the context of efficiency and risk“: Wir verwenden Granger-Kausalitätstechniken, um die intertemporalen Beziehungen zwischen Risiko, Effizienz und Kapital zu bewerten. Wir verwenden zwei verschiedene Maße der Effizienz, die Kosten- und Gewinneffizienz, da diese unterschiedliche Managementfähigkeiten widerspiegeln. Eine ist die Fähigkeit, Kosten zu steuern, und die andere ist die Möglichkeit, Gewinne zu maximieren. Wir stellen fest, dass eine niedrigere Kosten- und Gewinneffizienz das Liquiditätsrisiko erhöht. Wir stellen ebenfalls fest, dass ein Anstieg des Kreditrisiko nachteilig für die Kosten und Gewinneffizienz ist. Am wichtigsten ist jedoch, dass unsere Ergebnisse eine positive Beziehung zwischen dem Kapital- und Kreditrisiko aufweisen, was zeigt, dass Moral Hazard Verhalten keine Anwendung (aufgrund von Haftungsbeschränkung und Einlagensicherung) bei unsere Stichprobe von Genossenschaftsbanken findet. Im Gegenteil, wir finden Hinweise darauf, dass Banken mit niedrigem Kapital ihre Kreditqualität in den Folgeperioden verbessern können. Diese Erkenntnisse können für die Regulierungsbehörden von Bedeutung sein, die bei der Einführung neuer regulatorischer Kapitalbeschränkungen die Geschäftsmodelle der Banken berücksichtigen sollten. „Earnings Management Modelling in the Banking Industry – Evaluating valuable approaches“: Die Rechungslegungsforschung hat den Bereich Earnings Management (EM) für die nichtfinanzielle und finanzielle Industrie gesondert untersucht. Da EM nicht direkt beobachtet werden kann, ist es für jede Forschungsfrage in jedem Umfeld wichtig, einen überprüfbare Proxy-Größe für EM zu finden. Grundsätzlich fehlt jedoch ein tiefes Verständnis dafür, welche Regressoren den Schätzvorgang verbessern können. Diese Studie versucht, diese Lücke zu schließen, und analysiert vorhandene Modellspezifikationen für diskretionäre Risikovorsorgen im Bankensektor, um gemeinsame und spezifische Muster zu identifizieren. Hierfür verwenden wir einen US-Datensatz, bestehend aus den Jahren 2005-2015 und wenden gängige Testverfahren an, um das Ausmaß von Messfehlern, Verzerrungen aufgrund von Extrembeobachtungen und weggelassenen Variablen sowie die Vorhersagekraft der diskretionären Proxy-Größen zu untersuchen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass ein gründliches Verständnis des methodischen Modellierungsprozesses von EM im Bankensektor wichtig ist. Die derzeit etablierten Modelle zur Schätzung des EM sind angemessen, jedoch optimierbar. Insbesondere identifizieren wir die Variablen der notleidenden Vermögenswerte als die wichtigste Gruppe, während Variablen der Risikovorsorge und Nettoausbuchungen einen gewissen Wert erbringen können. Darüber hinaus zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, dass die Nichtlinearität bestimmter Regressoren ein Problem sein kann, das in zukünftigen Untersuchungen angegangen werden sollte, während wir weiterhin einige ausgelassene und möglicherweise korrelierte Variablen identifizieren, die einen Mehrwert generieren könnten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen auch, dass ein dynamischer, endogenität berücksichtigender Ansatz nicht unbedingt mit einer besseren Vorhersagekraft verknüpft ist. „Board Regulation and its Impact on Composition and Effects – Evidence from German Cooperative Bank“: In dieser Studie wird ein System-GMM-Schätzer verwendet, um die Auswirkungen möglicher regulatorischer Eingriffe auf die Besetzung von Aufsichtsratspositionen bei Genossenschaftsbanken zu untersuchen. Hierfür werden zwei verschiedene Untersuchungsdesigns angewandt. Zunächst untersucht der Autor die Änderungen der Aufsichtsratsstruktur vor und nach der Einführung des Gesetzes zur Stärkung der Finanzmarkt- und Versicherungsaufsicht (FinVAG). Zweitens schätzt der Autor den Einfluss von Doktoren und beruflicher Konzentration auf Änderungen des Bankrisikos unter Berücksichtigung der Umsetzung der FinVAG. Die untersuchte Stichprobe umfasst dabei 246 deutsche Genossenschaftsbanken in den Jahren von 2006 bis 2011. Bezüglich des Bankrisikos verwendet der Autor vier verschiedene Maße: das Kredit-, Kapital-, Liquiditätsrisiko und den Z-Score, wobei die ersten drei ebenfalls im FinVAG adressiert werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Umsetzung des FinVAGs zu strukturellen Änderungen in der Zusammensetzung der Aufsichtsräte führt, insbesondere auf Kosten der Landwirte. Darüber hinaus wirkt sich die Umsetzung risikoreduzierend und damit wie beabsichtigt auf alle Risikokennzahlen und Beziehungen zwischen Risikokennzahlen und Aufsichtsratsmerkmalen aus. Um die komplexe Beziehung zwischen Charakteristika der Aufsichtsräte und Risikomessgrößen aufzudecken, verwendet die Studie einen „two-step system-gmm“ Schätzer, um nicht beobachtete Heterogenität zu berücksichtigen, um Endogenitätsprobleme zu reduzieren. Die Ergebnisse können für Stakeholder, Aufsichtsbehörden, Vorgesetzte und Manager besonders relevant sein. / The present dissertation includes three research papers dealing with the following banking topics: (dis-) incentives and risk taking, earnings management and the regulation of supervisory boards. „Do cooperative banks suffer from moral hazard behaviour? Evidence in the context of efficiency and risk“: We use Granger-causality techniques to evaluate the intertemporal relationships among risk, efficiency and capital. We use two different measures of bank efficiency, i.e., cost and profit efficiency, since these measures reflect different managerial abilities. One is the ability to manage costs, and the other is the ability to maximize profits. We find that lower cost and profit efficiency Granger-cause increases in liquidity risk. We also identify that credit risk negatively Granger-causes cost and profit efficiency. Most importantly, our results show a positive relationship between capital and credit risk, thus displaying that moral hazard (due to limited liability and deposit insurance) does not apply to our sample of cooperative banks. On the contrary, we find evidence that banks with low capital are able to improve their loan quality in subsequent periods. These findings may be important to regulators, who should consider banks’ business models when introducing new regulatory capital constraints. „Earnings Management Modelling in the Banking Industry – Evaluating valuable approaches“: Accounting research has separately studied the field of Earnings Management (EM) for non-financial and financial industries. Since EM cannot be observed directly, it is important for every research question in any setting to find a verifiable proxy for EM. However, we still lack a thorough understanding of what regressors can add value to the estimation process of EM in banks. This study tries to close this gap and analyses existing model specifications of discretionary loan loss provisions (LLP) in the banking sector to identify common pattern groups and specific patterns used. Thereupon, we use an US-dataset from 2005-2015 and apply prevalent test procedures to examine the extent of measurement errors, extreme performance and omitted-variable biases and predictive power of the discretionary proxies of each of the models. Our results indicate that a thorough understanding about the methodological modelling process of EM in the banking industry is important. The currently established models to estimate EM are appropriate yet optimizable. In particular, we identify non-performing asset patterns as the most important group, while loan loss allowances and net charge offs can add some value, though do not seem to be indispensable. In addition, our results show that non-linearity of certain regressors can be an issue, which should be addressed in future research, while we identify some omitted and possibly correlated variables that might add value to specifications in identifying non-discretionary LLP. Results also indicate that a dynamic model and endogeneity robust estimation approach is not necessarily linked to better prediction power. „Board Regulation and its Impact on Composition and Effects – Evidence from German Cooperative Bank“: This study employs a system GMM framework to examine the impact of potential regulatory intervention regarding the occupations of supervisory board members in cooperative banks. To achieve insights the study proceeds in two different ways. First, the author investigates the changes in board structure prior and following to the German Act to Strengthen Financial Market and Insurance Supervision (FinVAG). Second, the author estimates the influence of Ph.D. degree holders and occupational concentration on bank-risk changes in consideration of the implementation of FinVAG. Therefore, the sample consists of 246 German cooperative banks from 2006-2011. Regarding bank-risk the author applies four different measures: credit-, equity-, liquidity-risk and the Z-Score, with the former three also being addressed in FinVAG. Results indicate that the implementation of FinVAG results in structural changes in board composition, especially at the expense of farmers. In addition, the implementation affects all risk-measures and relations between risk-measures and supervisory board characteristics in a risk-reducing and therefore intended way. To disentangle the complex relationship between board characteristics and risk measures the study utilizes a two-step system GMM estimator to account for unobserved heterogeneity, and simultaneity in order to reduce endogeneity problems. The findings may be especially relevant for stakeholders, regulators, supervisors and managers.

This study sought to explore the governance mechanisms that result in agent principal alignment in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), with specific reference to Job Creation. This is important to understand in South Africa as infrastructure PPPs are central to the government’s economic growth strategy. The Renewable Energy Programme (REIPPPP), a decade-old PPP, was identified as the ideal context given its consistent job-creation alignment between the state and its agents, Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Agency Theory posits that agents are inherently self-interested and thus unlikely to act in the interests of principals. However, while some theoretical propositions envisage instances of agent-principal alignment, what is less known are the precise mechanisms by which this can be achieved. This study explored the questions of moral hazard and adverse selection, which refer to goal conflict and information asymmetry in agent-principal relationships. The research was undertaken through a qualitative study, comprised of secondary data analysis as well as semi-structured interviews. It was found that by aligning contracts across multiple stakeholders, agents can increase their enforcement capacity. Furthermore, a rigorous data collection system accompanied by credible penalties, results in greater compliance. This contribution enhances the theory in respect of governance mechanisms whilst simultaneously providing practical guidance for PPP structuring. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

This dissertation contains three essays on the impact of other-regarding behavior on human decision-making. Chapter II uses experimental methods to analyze the relative performance of a variety of compensation contracts. This study creates an environment in which individuals are paid via common payment mechanisms employed in the dual-principal agent relationships (Piece Rate, Flat Rate, Salary, Bonus and Socialization) and examines the effect that different incentive structures have on agent behavior. In Chapter III I explore the potential outcomes of blended payment structures in a dual-principal agent environment. I draw from the previously conducted experimental study in Chapter II and simulate agent behavior induced by blended payment mechanisms. In Chapter IV, I move away from studying payment mechanisms to investigate the impact of intentionality and responsibility on an individual's decision-making process. I explore the effects of direct and indirect responsibility as well as selfish and kind intentions using experimental methodology. Each of these essays provides further evidence that other-regarding behavior has a significant impact on the outcome of an economic situation; therefore, emphasizing the need to address such behavior in theoretical designs. / Ph. D.

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<p>The complex and distributed nature of wireless networks have traditionally made allocation of network resources between network stakeholders a challenging task. In the next generation of wireless networks, allocation mechanisms must be able to address these traditional challenges while also addressing new challenges. New challenges arise as networks adopt changing business relationships between existing stakeholders, introduce new stakeholders with diverse interests, integrate intelligent and autonomous systems, and contend with emerging security threats. To address these new challenges, wireless network engineers will require a fundamental understanding of systems consisting of strategic decision makers with competing interests. Our contribution to this understanding is threefold: First, we study a novel moral hazard that that can occur when payment mechanisms are used to incentivize cooperation between multi-hop network nodes. Second, we introduce a network sharing framework that enables 5G/beyond-5G mobile operators to split shared infrastructure costs subject to a regulatory constraint on the cost structure of the shared network. Lastly, we study reliable communication over an adversarial channel in which the adversary can compute side-information subject to a practical computational bound. For each of the above three topics, we provide both analytical and numerical studies from which we derive insights into the design of allocation mechanisms.</p>

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第23671号 / 経博第654号 / 新制||経||300(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)准教授 菊谷 達弥, 教授 関口 格, 准教授 安達 貴教 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DGAM

The research question on problems that involves information asymmetry has been drawing more and more attention since the past decades, and in particular, two of the pioneers Bengt Holmström and Oliver Hart) in this field won the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2016. With the emergence of information economics, accounting researchers started focusing on the information asymmetry problems, with a particular interest and emphasis on moral hazard problems, within the firm. In this essay, we intend to fill the blank in this area by investigating some specific information asymmetry problems in managerial accounting under the presence of both moral hazard and adverse selection, or moral hazard and post-contract information asymmetry, respectively. The first study analyzes the expected value of information about an agent’s type in the presence of moral hazard and adverse selection. The value of the information decreases in the variability of output and the agent’s risk aversion, two factors that are typically associated with the severity of the moral hazard problem. However, the value of the information about agent type first increases but ultimately decreases in the severity of adverse selection. The second study draws attention to the tradeoffs associated with relying on pre-contracting ability measures in the design of executive compensation schemes. We show that the more sensitive of the ability signal to ability the more weight should be placed optimally, and the more precise of the ability signal the more weight should be placed optimally, in accordance with the informativeness principal. We further prove that under a broad class of distributions a linear aggregation of multiple pieces of pre-contracting information is sufficient for contracting purposes without loss of generality. The third study investigates three mechanisms of organizational control: outcome control (contracting on the outcome), effort control (contracting on the signal of action), and clan control (employing an agent whose preferences are partially aligned with the principal’s goal through a socialization process). In doing so, we expand the standard agency framework by introducing the concept of other-regarding preference and clan control to provide new insights into organizational control design. / Business Administration/Accounting