Dynamic programming approach to principal-agent problems (Q1691442)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
Dynamic programming approach to principal-agent problems
scientific article

    Statements

    Dynamic programming approach to principal-agent problems (English)
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    16 January 2018
    0 references
    The main contribution is in providing a systematic method to solve the principal-agent problem with a lump-sum payment on a finite horizon. It includes the case when the agent can also control the volatility of the output process, and not just the drift. The main approaches consist of: 1) finding the contract that is optimal among those for which the agent's value process allows a dynamic programming representation; and 2) showing that the optimization over this restricted family of contracts represents no loss of generality. The proofs are based on backward SDEs with non-Markovian stochastic control (and on extensions to the second-order case).
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    stochastic control of non-Markovian systems
    0 references
    HJB equations
    0 references
    second-order backward SDEs
    0 references
    principal-agent problem
    0 references
    contract theory
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references