The time-saving bias is a cognitive error which systematically influences human perception of relationship between speed and time. As a consequence they overestimate time gained/lost when accelerating/decelerating from higher speed and underestimate time gained/lost when accelerating/decelerating from lower speed. This bias is most salient in the context of a car driving where such a misperception might lead to an excessively high travelling speed. Apart from the impact on the driving safety, unduly high speed have negative effect also on the fuel economy. An undue fuel consumption can be an issue not only for firms, but also for the environment. This work tested a formerly proposed de-biasing measure, a paceometer, in a field experiment with the intention to find out if this kind of intervention can alter drivers' behaviour in order to reduce speeding and thus increase the driving safety and decrease the fuel consumption. To test also the strength of the measure the experiment was done within a middle size company where employees did not bear driving costs. Results based on 1 year fuel consumption data of 45 participants showed no particular effect of the measure on the average fuel consumption. A reason for this finding can be an existence of a principal/agent problem which considerably affects incentives of drivers.

The expansion and diffusion of mobile phones globally has resulted in the provision of financial transactional services over the existing mobile phone platforms, generally referred to as mobile money. The supply end of mobile money services is an important factor in the success of the financial transactions offering. This research assessed vulnerabilities in the mobile money supply network that are inherently related to the existence of the principal – agent problem and their implications on availability and access to the services. The research study was conducted using a qualitative approach. Qualitative information was collected through interviews guided by open – ended questionnaires. Thematic analysis approach was followed to systematically analyse the data and generate findings of the study. Agent transactional data was analysed to complement the findings from qualitative analysis The findings suggest that the principal agent problem permeates the mobile money delivery network mainly after businesses joining as agents and manifests as moral hazard. Moral hazard is the dominant feature of the principal – agent problem, with adverse selection very low. Drivers of moral hazard are demonstrated by the influences and demands of agents’ core businesses and challenges in agent monitoring and training. The existence of the principal – agent problem has limited or no implications on access and availability of services. However, overtime the combined vulnerabilities identified related to the principal agent problem are likely to manifest into risks that are likely to affect access and availability of mobile money services. Regulators, Mobile Network Operators and agent enterprises must collectively review monitoring approaches for mobile money service providers to address challenges identified and increase the effectiveness of monitoring. Service provision standards should be reviewed to suit the various business environments the services are provided within. Mobile Network Operators and agent enterprises need to institute stronger partnership arrangements that enhance ownership and obligations for all parties, in particular agent enterprises. Agreements must enable application of different mobile money delivery models suitable to meet the demands and requirements of the agents’ core businesses. Innovations such as Near Field Communication (NFC) can be integrated with Point of sale (POS) applications and mobile money platforms to reduce the administration burden on agents and human error. Such applications must consider the cost implications of adoption from the agents’ business perspective.

Bakgrund: Den tredje januari 2018 trädde EU-direktivet Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) i kraft. Direktivet ämnar öka investerarskyddet genom att eliminera informationsasymmetri och intressekonflikter på finansmarknaden, och samtidigt harmonisera reglerna mellan EU-länder. Inom investeringsrådgivning innebär det nya regelverket ökad dokumentation, ett större fokus på att försäkra sig om att investerarna förstår risker, hårdare krav på hur avgifter kommuniceras och striktare regler kring incitament. Allt detta för att skydda investerarna, som ofta visat sig ha en bristfällig finansiell kunskap och ett lågt intresse för privatekonomi. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att utifrån värdepappersföretagens perspektiv skapa förståelse för vilken påverkan EU-direktivet MiFID II har haft på principal-agent problem som uppstår vid investeringsrådgivning. Genomförande: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie. Vidare har ett fenomenologiskt forskningsperspektiv använts, med en abduktiv ansats. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sammanlagt sju respondenter som alla jobbar på värdepappersföretag, vilka valdes ut med ett målstyrt bekvämlighetsurval. Resultat: Uppsatsen kommer fram till att principal-agent problemen inom investeringsrådgivning inte har eliminerats. Informations- asymmetrin är enligt vår tolkning av de traditionella teorierna närmast obefintlig, men utgör fortfarande ett stort problem på grund av investerarnas ointresse och relativt låga förmåga att ta till sig informationen. Vi argumenterar därav att dessa dimensioner bör inkluderas i teorin för vilka trösklar som kan orsaka informationsasymmetrin. Intressekonflikterna har reducerats, men finns till viss mån fortfarande kvar. Motivationen att agera i ett egenintresse har dock inte påverkats. Uppsatsen visar således på att MiFID II inte har förflyttat principal-agent relationen till en stewardship relation. Kunskapsbidrag: Det teoretiska bidraget gällande informationsasymmetri utmanar antagandet om att principalen vill ha information som är relevant för denne. Uppsatsen visar att så inte alltid är fallet. Förutom att det uppstår informationsasymmetri om det är kostsamt eller svårt att ta reda på agentens handlingar, kan det även uppstå i situationer där principalen är ointresserad av, eller oförmögen att ta till sig av informationen enligt vår mening. Vidare har MiFID II inneburit att det är svårare för agenten att tillgodose sitt egenintresse om detta strider mot principalens. Däremot har direktivet inte inneburit att den interna motivationen ändrats och det går därför inte att förutsätta att ett kontraktsförhållande som haft en principal-agent relation övergår till en stewardship relation när dessa problem elimineras. Genom en ökad förståelse för hur tvingande lagstiftningar påverkar principal-agent problem kan det empiriska bidraget hjälpa tillsynsmyndigheter i sitt arbete att hantera principal-agent problem. Uppsatsen skulle således kunna underlätta vidareutveckling av regleringen som finns idag, likväl som utformningen av framtida direktiv och lagar. Med ett utomstående perspektiv på vilka intressekonflikter som kan uppstå vid investeringsrådgivning skulle det empiriska bidraget också kunna vara gynnsamt för värdepappersföretag och deras arbete för att hantera intressekonflikter. / Background: On January 3, 2018, the EU directive Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) came into effect. The directive is intended to expand investor protection through eliminating information asymmetry and conflicts of interest in the financial market, while also harmonizing the regulations between nations within the EU. For investment advising, the directive results in more extensive documentation and stricter regulation of how fees and risks are communicated, as well as how incentives are handled; all with the aim of protecting investors. At the same time, the general public shows low interest in personal finance, as well as inadequate financial knowledge. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to further the understanding of how the introduction of the EU directive MiFID II has affected the principal-agent problem that arises during investment advising, from an investment firm perspective. Completion: This is a qualitative case-study which utilizes a phenomenological research perspective and an abductive approach. The empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews at investment firms with a total of seven respondents, whom were selected through goal-oriented convenience sampling.  Conclusion: The study concludes that the principal-agent problems in investment advising have not been eliminated. According to our interpretation of the traditional theories, information asymmetry is nearly non-existent. Yet it remains a significant problem due to lack of interest and an inability to assimilate the information. Thus, we argue that the theoretical framework should be revised to include these barriers, as they may lead to information asymmetry. Conflicts of interest have been reduced, but still remain to some extent. Furthermore, the motivation to act based on self-interest still remain. Hence, the study shows that MiFID II has not turned the principal-agent relationship into a stewardship relationship. Contribution: The theoretical contribution to information asymmetry challenges the assumption that the principal is interested in all the information that is of relevance for them. The study show that this is not always the case. Apart from information asymmetry arising when ascertaining the actions of the agent is expensive or difficult, it can also arise due to the principal’s lack of interest or inability to assimilate the information. Moreover, MiFID II has made it more difficult for the agent to act in their own self-interest, should it deviate from the interest of the principal. The directive has not, however, affected the intrinsic motivation of the agent. Thus, we cannot assume that the elimination of these problems causes a principal-agent relationship to transform into a stewardship relationship. Through an increased understanding of how binding legislation affects principal-agent problems, the empirical contribution can help regulatory bodies in their work to mitigate the aforementioned problems. Hence, the study may help to not only expand existing legislation, but also in the development of future legislation and directives. By providing an outside perspective of what conflicts of interests could arise in investment advising, the empirical contribution could also be of use for investment firms in their work to identify and manage conflicts of interest

Real Estate Agencies compensation consists of commissions and a part of the commission corresponds to what the real estate agent gets as salary. This incentive-based commission system is usually covered by an agreed fixed amount, a variable commission model or a combination of both depending on the brokerage object's final selling price. Commission system can lead to adverse consequences when the real estate agent abuses their position and exploits an information advantage to gain a financial benefits. Based on completed questionnaires, that have been posted for this study, directed to consumers and real estate agents, it is recognized that the parties in the Swedish real estate agent industry has experienced or is experiencing a certain unethical behavior because of commission-based pay structures. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how asymmetric information affects the real estate industry brokerage contract negotiations regarding the commission and whether conflicts of interest may occur due to this. Because of asymmetric information in contract situations, there may be situations in which agreements will contradict societal norms and ethical principles, because the broker abuses his advantage. The essence of this thesis is to convey a discussion in order to associate the legal application of contracts with normative ethics. The essay writers propose for instance based on ethical approaches to create a complement to the existing law and further to come up with practical solutions to limit the possibility of unreasonable commission models in real estate brokerage. The essay writers argue that the introduction of a stricter supervision of the commission procedure would create stronger assurance and reduce the abuse of the information asymmetry in the industry. / Fastighetsmäklarbranschens ersättningssystem utgörs av provision och motsvarar en del av vad en fastighetsmäklare får i lön. Detta incitamentbaserade provisionssystem brukar omfattas av ett avtalat fast belopp, en rörlig provisionsmodell eller en kombination av båda som beror på förmedlingsobjektets slutliga försäljningspris. Provisionssystemet kan föranleda negativa följder om fastighetsmäklaren missbrukar sin ställning och utnyttjar ett informationsövertag till att skapa sig en finansiell fördel. Utifrån genomförda enkätundersökningar i denna studie riktade till konsumenter och fastighetsmäklare medges det att parterna inom den svenska fastighetsmäklarbranschen har upplevt eller upplever ett visst oetiskt beteende på grund av provisionsbaserade lönestrukturer. Syftet med denna uppsats är därför att undersöka hur asymmetrisk information påverkar fastighetsmäklarbranschens avtalsförhandlingar avseende provisionen och huruvida intressekonflikter kan uppstå till följd av detta. På grund av asymmetrisk information i avtalssammanhang kan det förekomma situationer där avtalen strider mot samhällsnormer och etiska principer när mäklaren missbrukar sitt övertag. Kärnan i denna uppsats är att föra en samlad diskussion som avser att koppla den rättsliga tillämpningen av avtalslagen med den normativa etiken. Uppsatsförfattarna resonerar bland annat utifrån etiska synsätt för att skapa ett komplement till gällande lag och vidare komma fram till praktiska lösningar till hur eventuellt oskäliga provisionsmodeller kan begränsas. Uppsatsförfattarna hävdar att ett införande av en starkare tillsyn över provisionsförfarandet skulle skapa större förtroende och minska asymmetrin i branschen.

Can the HEXACO personality dimensions and facets be used to explain the principal-agent problem and the disposition effect? The proposed research is designed to address the relationship between personality dimensions and individuals’ propensity to engage in self-interested behavior (agency effect) and irrational investment decisions (disposition effect). This paper proposes a correlational study that will be one of the first to apply Ashton and Lee’s (2009) HEXACO framework of personality to examine the association between the six personality dimensions and measurements of the agency and disposition effect. The HEXACO model of personality dimension includes Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Total participants in both experiments will be 480 undergraduate college students. Participating students will complete the HEXACO-60 self-report inventory and take part in a stock simulation where measurements of interests are recorded. Higher scores along the Honesty-Humility and Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative relationship with the agency effect measurement, while Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion will have a weak to moderate positive association. Higher scores along the Emotionality dimensions are expected to have a strong negative association with the disposition effect measurement, while lower scores of Conscientiousness are expected to have a positive relationship.

This paper discovers the link between corruption and general government deficits in European countries. A short review of concepts such as agency theory and principal-agent problem is made. After introducing a simple model of corruption-deficit relationship, the correlation is tested by regression analysis for years 2003-2009. Besides the year 2008 (the first year of financial crisis) are the results significant on the 5% confidence level. The regression of means is significant on 1% confidence level. The deficits are statistical significantly correlated with the level of perceived corruption.

"Current approaches to design are often serial and iterative in nature, leading to poor quality of design and reduced productivity. Complex artifacts are designed by groups of experts, each with his/her own area of expertise. Hence design can be modeled as a cooperative multi-agent problem-solving task, where different agents possess different expertise and evaluation criteria. New techniques for Concurrent Design, which emphasize parallel interaction among design experts involved, are needed. During this concurrent design process, disagreements may arise among the expert agents as the design is being produced. The process by which these differences are resolve to arrive at a common set of design decisions is called Negotiation. The main issues associated with the negotiation process are, whether negotiation should be centralized or distributed, the language of communication and the negotiation strategy. The goals of this thesis are to study the work done by various researchers in this field, to do a comarative analysis of their work and to design and implement an approach to handle negotiation between expert agents in an existing Concurrent Engineering Design System."

<p>We analyse several facets of bilevel decision problems under uncertainty. These problems can be interpreted as an extension of stochastic programming problems where part of the uncertainty is attributed to the behaviour of another actor.</p><p>The field of decision making under uncertainty with bilevel features is quite new and most approaches focus on the interactions and relations between the decision makers. In contrast to these studies, the approach of bilevel stochastic programming pursued here stresses the stochastic programming aspect of the problem formulation. The framework enables a direct application of stochastic programming concepts and solution methods to the bilevel relationship between the actors. Thus more complex problem structures can be studied and the aspect of uncertainty can be treated adequately.</p><p>Our analysis covers both theoretical and more practically oriented issues. We study different formulations of one and two stage bilevel stochastic programming problems and state necessary optimality conditions for each of the problem instances. Additionally we present a solution algorithm utilising a stochastic quasi-gradient method. A further study is concerned with the uniqueness of the minima of a convex stochastic programming problem with uncertainty about the decision variables. We state conditions on the distribution of the parameters representing the uncertainty such that the minima of the optimisation problem are unique. We formulate a model of competition and collaboration of two different types of telecom service providers, the owner of a bottleneck facility and a virtual network operator. This represents an application of a bilevel stochastic programming formulation to a liberalised telecommunications environment. Furthermore, the utilisation of the bilevel stochastic programming framework and the developed solution concepts for the analysis of principal agent models is demonstrated. Also here the background of a regulated telecom environment, more specific the relations between a regulator and a regulated telecommunications company, was chosen.</p>

We analyse several facets of bilevel decision problems under uncertainty. These problems can be interpreted as an extension of stochastic programming problems where part of the uncertainty is attributed to the behaviour of another actor. The field of decision making under uncertainty with bilevel features is quite new and most approaches focus on the interactions and relations between the decision makers. In contrast to these studies, the approach of bilevel stochastic programming pursued here stresses the stochastic programming aspect of the problem formulation. The framework enables a direct application of stochastic programming concepts and solution methods to the bilevel relationship between the actors. Thus more complex problem structures can be studied and the aspect of uncertainty can be treated adequately. Our analysis covers both theoretical and more practically oriented issues. We study different formulations of one and two stage bilevel stochastic programming problems and state necessary optimality conditions for each of the problem instances. Additionally we present a solution algorithm utilising a stochastic quasi-gradient method. A further study is concerned with the uniqueness of the minima of a convex stochastic programming problem with uncertainty about the decision variables. We state conditions on the distribution of the parameters representing the uncertainty such that the minima of the optimisation problem are unique. We formulate a model of competition and collaboration of two different types of telecom service providers, the owner of a bottleneck facility and a virtual network operator. This represents an application of a bilevel stochastic programming formulation to a liberalised telecommunications environment. Furthermore, the utilisation of the bilevel stochastic programming framework and the developed solution concepts for the analysis of principal agent models is demonstrated. Also here the background of a regulated telecom environment, more specific the relations between a regulator and a regulated telecommunications company, was chosen.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第22948号 / 経博第623号 / 新制||経||294(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)教授 諸富 徹, 教授 矢野 剛, 教授 劉 徳強 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DFAM