The Experts below are selected from a list of 360 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform

Karen M Gibler - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Manfred Elsig - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • agents trustees and international courts the politics of judicial appointment at the world trade organization
    European Journal of International Relations, 2014
    Co-Authors: Manfred Elsig, Mark A Pollack
    Abstract:

    Scholars have increasingly theorized, and debated, the decision by states to create and delegate authority to international courts, as well as the subsequent autonomy and behavior of those courts, with principal�agent and trusteeship models disagreeing on the nature and extent of states� influence on international judges. This article formulates and tests a set of principal�agent hypotheses about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, member states are able use their powers of judicial nomination and appointment to influence the endogenous preferences of international judges. The empirical analysis surveys the record of all judicial appointments to the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) over a 15-year period. We present a view of an Appellate Body appointment process that, far from representing a pure search for expertise, is deeply politicized and offers member-state principals opportunities to influence Appellate Body members ex ante and possibly ex post. We further demonstrate that the Appellate Body nomination process has become progressively more politicized over time as member states, responding to earlier and controversial Appellate Body decisions, became far more concerned about judicial activism and more interested in the substantive opinions of Appellate Body candidates, systematically championing candidates whose views on key issues most closely approached their own, and opposing candidates perceived to be activist or biased against their substantive preferences. Although our empirical study is specific to the WTO, our theory and findings have implications for the judicial politics of a large variety of global and regional international courts and tribunals.

  • european union meets south korea bureaucratic interests exporter discrimination and the negotiations of trade agreements
    Journal of Common Market Studies, 2012
    Co-Authors: Manfred Elsig, Cedric Dupont
    Abstract:

    Who in the European Union drives the process of pursuing bilateral trade negotiations? In contrast to societal explanations, this article develops a novel argument as to how the European Commission manages the process and uses its position in strategic ways to pursue its interests. Rooted in principal–agent theory, the article discusses agent preferences and theorizes the conditions under which the agent sets specific focal points and interacts strategically with principals and third parties. The argument is discussed with case study evidence drawn from the first trade agreement concluded and ratified since the EU Commission announced its new strategy in 2006: the EU–South Korea trade agreement

  • principal agent theory and the world trade organization complex agency and missing delegation
    European Journal of International Relations, 2011
    Co-Authors: Manfred Elsig
    Abstract:

    This article analyses the World Trade Organization within a principal–agent framework. The concept of complex agent is introduced to focus on the variety of actors that comprise an international organization. Special attention is paid to the relationship between contracting parties’ representatives and the Secretariat. In the empirical part, the article analyses the role of the Secretariat in assisting negotiations and presents evidence of declining influence. It is shown how principal–agent theory can contribute to addressing this puzzle of ‘missing delegation’. The article concludes with a cautionary note as to the ‘location’ of international organizations’ emerging pathologies and calls for additional research to address the relationship between material and social sources to explain behaviour of the key actors within the complex agency.

  • agents trustees and international courts the politics of judicial appointment at the world trade organization
    2011
    Co-Authors: Manfred Elsig, Mark A Pollack
    Abstract:

    Scholars have increasingly theorized, and debated, the decision by states to create and delegate authority to international courts, as well as the subsequent autonomy and behavior of those courts, with principal-agent and trusteeship models disagreeing on the nature and extent of states’ influence on international judges. This article formulates and tests a set of principal-agent hypotheses about the ways in which, and the conditions under which, member states are able use their powers of judicial nomination and appointment to influence the endogenous preferences of international judges. The empirical analysis surveys the record of all judicial appointments to the Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization over a 15-year period. We present a view of an AB appointment process that, far from representing a pure search for expertise, is deeply politicized and offers member-state principals opportunities to influence AB members ex ante and possibly ex post. We further demonstrate that the AB nomination process has become progressively more politicized over time as member states, responding to earlier and controversial AB decisions, became far more concerned about judicial activism and more interested in the substantive opinions of AB candidates, systematically championing candidates whose views on key issues most closely approached their own, and opposing candidates perceived to be activist or biased against their substantive preferences. Although specific to the WTO, our theory and findings have implications for the judicial politics of a large variety of global and regional international courts and tribunals.

Nizar Touzi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • moral hazard in dynamic risk management
    Management Science, 2017
    Co-Authors: Jaksa Cvitanic, Dylan Possamai, Nizar Touzi
    Abstract:

    We consider a contracting problem in which a principal hires an agent to manage a risky project. When the agent chooses volatility components of the output process and the principal observes the output continuously, the principal can compute the quadratic variation of the output, but not the individual components. This leads to moral hazard with respect to the risk choices of the agent. To find the optimal contract, we develop a novel approach to solving principal–agent problems: first, we identify a family of admissible contracts for which the optimal agent’s action is explicitly characterized; then, we show that we do not lose on generality when finding the optimal contract inside this family, up to integrability conditions. To do this, we use the recent theory of singular changes of measures for Ito processes. We solve the problem in the case of CARA preferences and show that the optimal contract is linear in these factors: the contractible sources of risk, including the output, the quadratic variation of the output and the cross-variations between the output and the contractible risk sources. Thus, like sample Sharpe ratios used in practice, path-dependent contracts naturally arise when there is moral hazard with respect to risk management. In a numerical example, we show that the loss of efficiency can be significant if the principal does not use the quadratic variation component of the optimal contract.

  • moral hazard in dynamic risk management
    arXiv: Portfolio Management, 2014
    Co-Authors: Jaksa Cvitanic, Dylan Possamai, Nizar Touzi
    Abstract:

    We consider a contracting problem in which a principal hires an agent to manage a risky project. When the agent chooses volatility components of the output process and the principal observes the output continuously, the principal can compute the quadratic variation of the output, but not the individual components. This leads to moral hazard with respect to the risk choices of the agent. We identify a family of admissible contracts for which the optimal agent's action is explicitly characterized, and, using the recent theory of singular changes of measures for It\^o processes, we study how restrictive this family is. In particular, in the special case of the standard Homlstr\"om-Milgrom model with fixed volatility, the family includes all possible contracts. We solve the principal-agent problem in the case of CARA preferences, and show that the optimal contract is linear in these factors: the contractible sources of risk, including the output, the quadratic variation of the output and the cross-variations between the output and the contractible risk sources. Thus, like sample Sharpe ratios used in practice, path-dependent contracts naturally arise when there is moral hazard with respect to risk management. In a numerical example, we show that the loss of efficiency can be significant if the principal does not use the quadratic variation component of the optimal contract.

Bruno S Frey - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • does monitoring increase work effort the rivalry with trust and loyalty
    Economic Inquiry, 1993
    Co-Authors: Bruno S Frey
    Abstract:

    Principal-agent theory suggests that tighter monitoring will raise an agent's work effort and will be applied provided that transaction costs are low. However, when a psychological contract exists between principals and agents, the agents perceive increased monitoring as an indication of distrust, and this induces them to reduce work effort. This “crowding out effect” is likely to dominate when the relationship between principals and agents is personal, while the “disciplining effect” is likely to dominate when the relationship is abstract, as in a competitive market setting. Empirical evidence from neighbouring sciences and from an econometric study supports this proposition.

  • does monitoring increase work effort the rivalry with trust and loyalty
    Economic Inquiry, 1993
    Co-Authors: Bruno S Frey
    Abstract:

    Principal-agent theory suggests that tighter monitoring will raise an agent's work effort and will be applied provided that transaction costs are low. However, when a psychological contract exists between principals and agents, the agents perceive increased monitoring as an indication of distrust and this induces them to reduce work effort. This 'crowding out effect'is likely to dominate when the relationship between principals and agents is personal, while the 'disciplining effect'is likely to dominate when the relationship is abstract, as in a competitive market setting. Empirical evidence from neighboring sciences and from an econometric study supports this proposition. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.

Tak Kuen Siu - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • principal agent theory based risk allocation model for virtual enterprise
    Journal of Service Science and Management, 2010
    Co-Authors: Min Huang, Guike Chen, Waiki Ching, Tak Kuen Siu
    Abstract:

    In this paper, we consider a risk analysis model for Virtual Enterprise (VE) by exploring the state of the art of the principal-agent theory. In particular, we deal with the problem of allocating the cost of risk between two parties in a VE, namely, the owner and the partner(s). We first consider the case of a single partner of VE with symmetric information or asymmetric information and then the case of multiple partners. We also build a model for the optimal contract of the risk allocation based on the principal-agent theory and analyze it through specific example. At last we consider the case of multiple principal with potentially many partners based on common agency.