现有讨论委托代理问题涉及将不同时点收益和成本折现时,几乎毫无例外的选择唯一能代表时间偏好一致的折现函数一指数折现。本文放松时间偏好一致这一假设,选择能反映时间偏好不一致的准双曲折现函数一艘作为代理人折现函数,分析收益由努力程度和外部因素共同作用,代理人的成本和收益发生在不同时点时,委托人如何制定激励合同使得代理人努力工作且委托人获得最大利润。研究发现,最优合同与代理人的现期偏好参数卢和对未来现期偏好参数的认知β有关,委托人从时间偏好一致的代理人获取的利润高于时间偏好不一致的代理人,从悲观部分幼稚型获取利润小于成熟型,但从成熟型和乐观部分幼稚型获取的利润相同。
When discounting returns and costs at different points about the principal-agent problem are involved, nearly all existing studies choose exponential discounting function, which is the only discounting function standing for time-consistency. This paper relaxes the time-consistency preference hypothesis, taking quasi-hyperbolic discounting--ββδ as the agents discounting function. How principals inspire agents to work hard is considered in order to maximize their profits when principals' costs and returns occur at different points and returns are determined by the level of efforts and external factors. The findings suggest that the optimal contract is related with the present-biased parameters β and the beliefs about the future present-biased parameterβ. Principals obtain more expected profits from time-consistency preference agents than time-inconsistency preference agents and obtain more expected profits from sophisticated agent than partially naive and pessimistic agent. However, they obtain equal expected profits from sophisticated agent and partially naive and optimistic agent.