WBS Workshop on Contract Theory and Organizational Economics (a.k.a. CTWE)
Basic Information
This workshop is a part of the research project (EN / JP) of the Institute for Business and Finance (EN /JP), Waseda Business School, organized by Hideshi Itoh. It intends to be informal and accessible to anyone who is interested in the topics irrespective of his/her affiliation. Please send me (my first name dot my last name at alumni d0t stanford dot edu) an e-mail if you are interested in contributing to the workshop by presenting your (however incomplete) work or participating actively in discussion. Presentation may be in English contingent on the audience.
Where: Waseda campus.
2023 Workshop Schedule
December 27: 10th Annual Communication Theory Workshop (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Waseda University (Waseda campus), Bldg 3, 3F, 3-304
Presentation in Japanese
14:30-16:00
Speaker: Hiroto Sato (U Tokyo)
Title: Information Design in Pandora's Problem (+ Persuasion in Ordered Search, time permitting) (joint with Ryo Shirakawa)
16:20-17:50
Speaker: Masaki Miyashita (HKU)
Title: LQG Information Design (with Takashi Ui)
2022 Workshop Schedule
December 27: 9th Annual Communication Theory Workshop (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Waseda University (Waseda campus), Bldg 3, 3F, 3-304 (Hybrid)
Presentation in Japanese
14:00-14:50
Speaker: Wataru Kitano (Tokyo University of Science)
Title: A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing: Intentional Disregard under Sequential Persuasion" (joint with Satoshi Nakada)
15:10-16:00
Speaker: Shunya Nuta (Osaka University)
Title: Sequential vs. Hierarchical Persuasion
16:20-17:50
Speaker: Yasuhiro Shirata (Otaru University of Commerce)
Title: Antitrust Policy under R&D Spillovers and Moral Hazard
2021 Workshop Schedule
December 18: 8th Annual Communication Theory Workshop (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Virtual
Presentation in Japanese
15:00-16:00
Speaker: Hitoshi Sadakane (Kyoto U)
Title: Cheap Talk and Lie Detection
Abstract: 一般に、情報発信者の言説の真偽を検証するという行為は、情報の真偽を確認してから意思決定を行う聴衆の行動に影響を与える。このことは情報発信者が聴衆を騙して自身にとって有益な意思決定をさせようとしても、嘘がばれることで最終的には不利な意思決定が行われる可能性があることを示唆している。直感的には、この暗黙の（間接的な）嘘のコストによって、情報発信者はより慎重に発言するようになると考えられる。しかし、そのメカニズムは自明ではない。本研究では Crawford and Sobel 型のチープトークゲームを基本モデルとして、言伝の情報伝達と受け手の戦略的な事実検証行為の間の戦略的相互連関を明らかにする。そして、状態の事前分布が一様分布で情報の受け手の利得関数が二次の損失関数である場合の受け手最適均衡の特徴付を行う。
16:10-17:10
Speaker: Junichiro Ishida (Osaka U)
Title: Signaling under Double-crossing Preferences （Econometrica 採択記念ということで、テクニカルな肝を中心に説明していただきます）
Abstract: This paper provides a general analysis of signaling under double-crossing preferences with a continuum of types. There are natural economic environments where the indifference curves of two types cross twice, such that the celebrated single-crossing property fails to hold. Equilibrium exhibits a threshold type below which types choose actions that are fully revealing and above which they pool in a pairwise fashion, with a gap separating the actions chosen by these two sets of types. The resulting signaling action is quasi-concave in type. We also provide an algorithm to establish equilibrium existence by construction.
17:10-: Discussion
November 13 (Sat), (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Online
Time: 16:00-
Speaker: Akifumi Ishihara (Tokyo)
Title: Ignoring Advice for Money
Abstract: We investigate a model of an expert and a decision maker, where the expert sends a cheap-talk message and monetary transfer. Ignoring advice induces the expert to pay transfer for costly signalling. As a result, equilibria such that information is fully revealed are not optimal for the decision maker even if the parties have a common interest. We also show that conflict of interest increases transfer from the expert and then is preferable for the decision maker.
October 23 (Sat), (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Online
Time: 17:00-
Speaker: Takuro Yamashita (TSE)
Title: "Bayesian Persuasion Followed by Receiver’s Mechanism Design" (joint with Shuguang Zhu)
Abstract: In Bayesian persuasion, Receiver simply plays an action after Sender's public signal draw. However, in some applications, it seems natural that Receiver tries to elicit more information from Sender by offering a screening contract. This paper studies its economic implications, mainly in a stylized binary, quasilinear environment. In the "weak commitment'' model where Sender acquires full information as his private information, the informativeness of the public signal is less than under Bayesian persuasion, suggesting that the public and private information are "substitutes''. Both Sender and Receiver are better off than in Bayesian persuasion, meaning that Sender prefers "being further screened''. In the strong commitment model where Sender jointly designs both public and private signals, he sometimes finds it more profitable to have less precise private information. The outcome is most efficient (both in terms of information and welfare) with weak commitment, less so with strong commitment, and least in Bayesian persuasion. This suggests that economic predictions based on the standard model might be biased toward overly inefficient outcomes.
July 24 (Sat), (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Online
Time: 10:00-
Speaker: Ali Palida (MIT)
Title: "Designing Protocol to Manage Influence Activities and Promote Information Transmission" (pdf)
2020 Workshop Schedule
(CANCELED) March 16 (Mon), joint with Institute for Empirical Research in Organizational Economics (EOE)
Location: Waseda campus, Bldg 11, 9F, Room 903
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Heikki Rantakari (U Rochester)
Title: Simon Says? Equilibrium Obedience and the Limits of Authority
(CANCELED & rescheduled to August) March 24 (Tue): The Organizational Economics Workshop inviting Wouter Dessein (joint with EOE)
Past Workshop (2019)
December 27: 7th Annual Communication Theory Workshop (joint with Communication and Persuasion Workshop)
Location: Waseda campus, Bldg 3, 10F, Conference Room 1 (3号館10階第1会議室)
Presentation in Japanese
14:00-14:20 (special session)
Speaker: Shintaro Miura (Kanagawa U, visiting Waseda U)
Title: Corrigendum to Crawford and Sobel (1982) "Strategic Information Transmission" by Kono and Kandori (2019)
14:30-16:00
Speaker: Naruto Nagaoka (Kobe Gakuin U)
Title: Communication and Information Aggregation for a Trick Question Problem (joint with Tomoya Tajika)
16:30-18:00
Speaker: Hitoshi Sadakane (Kyoto U)
Title: When Does Diversification Require Decentralization? (joint with Ming Li)
October 25 (Joint with Friday Seminar and WINPEC Microeconomics Workshop) :
Location: 11-908 (9th floor of Building 11)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Takeshi Murooka (Osaka U)
Title: Fragile Self-Esteem (joint with Botond Kőszegi and George Loewenstein) (pdf)
July 16 (Tue, Joint with WINPEC Microeconomics Workshop) :
Location: 3-404 (4th floor of Building 3)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Trond E. Olsen (NHH)
Title: Relational incentive contracts and performance measurement (joint with Chang Koo Chi)
June 14:
Location: 11-1109 (11th floor of Building 11)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Jiangtao Li (Singapore Management U)
Title: Robustly Optimal Reserve Price
April 26:
Location: 11-1109 (11th floor of Building 11)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Yoko Sakamoto (Meiji Gakuin U)
Title: Product Life-Cycle and Geography of Innovation
April 23 (Tue, Joint with WINPEC Microeconomics Workshop) :
Location: 3-404 (4th floor of Building 3)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Shintaro Miura (Kanagawa U, visiting Waseda U)
Title: Prudence in Persuasion
April 16 (Tue, Joint with WINPEC Microeconomics Workshop) :
Location: 3-404 (4th floor of Building 3)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Matthias Fahn (JKU Linz)
Title: Informal Incentives and Product Market Competition (with Takeshi Murooka)
April 12:
Location: 11-1109 (11th floor of Building 11)
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Fabian Herweg (U Bayreuth)
Title: Regret Theory and Salience Theory: Total Strangers, Distant Relatives or Close Cousins? (with D. Müller) pdf
January 25 (joint with Friday Seminar) :
Location: Building 11, 9th Floor, Room 903
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Shuichi Tsugawa (Kyushu U)
Title: Price Competition and Product Differentiation under Green Trade Union
Abstract: The number of people who pay attention to eco-friendliness in choosing products is increasing, so firms or product sellers should take care of such demands. In addition, trade unions insist that they should deal with not only increasing their wages, but also environment protection in order to improve their work situation. This paper investigates Bertrand price competition under product differentiation and green trade union. Here, variety of product identifies level of emissions per unit product, and all consumers aligned on Hoteling line have the taste for the variety. It is shown that more eco-friendly firm can set lower product price because of setting lower wages while the other firm sets the higher price.
January 11 (joint with Friday Seminar) :
Location: Building 11, 9th Floor, Room 902
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Hideo Owan (Waseda U)
Title: How Good Managers Steer Their Projects: Using Value-Added Measures of Manager Quality (joint with Ruo Shangguan)
Past Workshop (2018)
December 28: 6th Annual Communication Theory Workshop
Location: Building 11, 9th Floor, Room 903
14:45-16:15
Speaker: Hitoshi Sadakane (Kyoto U)
Title: Intra-Firm Communication and Organizational Design in a Cournot Competition with Strategic Investments
16:30-18:00
Speaker: Kazumi Hori (Ritsumeikan U)
Title: Two-sided Strategic Information Transmission when Principal and Agent are Privately Informed (with Saori Chiba)
Presentation in Japanese
Registration for dinner (closed) .
December 21 (joint with Friday Seminar) :
Location: Building 11, 9th Floor, Room 903
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Desmond Lo (Santa Clara U)
Title: Coordination and Organization Design: Theory and Micro-evidence (joint with Wouter Dessein and Chieko Minami)
Abstract: We explore the relationship between a firm's organizational structure, the instability of its local environment, and the need for coordination among sub-units. Using micro-level data on a large retailer, we empirically test and provide support for our hypothesis that a more unpredictable local environment results in more decentralization only when coordination needs are small or moderate. In contrast, more unpredictability is associated with more centralization of tasks when coordination needs are high. Our evidence is consistent with an organizational tradeoff between adaptation and coordination and theories that argue that centralized organizations may be better at coping with local shocks when coordinated adaptation is important.
Registration for dinner (closed) .
November 23
Location: Building 11, 9th Floor, Room 909
Time: 16:30-18:00
Speaker: Yosuke Hashidate (U Tokyo)
Title: Image Concerns and Social Influences
Presentation in Japanese
Past Workshop (2017)
December 22: 5th Annual Communication Theory Workshop, joint with Waseda Seminar on Game Theory and Experimental Economics
Location: Waseda campus, Bldg 3, 10F, Conference Room 1 (3号館10階第一会議室)
15:50-16:50
Speaker: Shintaro Miura (Kanagawa U)
Title: Value of Mass Media
Abstract: Are biased media outlets always harmful to voters? To answer this question, we discuss the value of biased media outlets. The distortion aused by biased outlets is modeled by the manipulated news model, where voters do not directly observe policies chosen by candidates, and then they rely on the news from media outlets. We then compare it with the following two counterfactual models in which voters commit not to observe the news from the outlets, but there are alternative sources providing election-relevant information. The first one is the word-of-mouth model, in which voters obtain “rumors” about the proposed policies from the other voters. The second one is the social media model, in which candidates can send direct but imperfect messages to voters. Our conclusion is that the answer depends on whether the alternative sources can send credible information.
17:00-18:00
Speaker: Kohei Kawamura (Waseda U)
Title: A Simple Theory of Media Reports (with Mark Le Quement)
Abstract: We study a model of endogenously repeated cheap talk in a Markovian environment. In each period, the uninformed party (the receiver, i.e. the public/readers) can consult the informed party (the sender, i.e. the media) at a cost. The sender, who is driven by profits, has an incentive to generate uncertainty in order to encourage future consultation. We find that the accuracy of the sender's reports may decline as the cost of consultation becomes lower. Both the sender and receiver can benefit from a higher cost of consultation, which dampens the sender's responsiveness to uncertainty and allows him to commit to similar likelihood of (re)consultation conditional on different messages, thereby reducing the sender's incentive to misreport.
Register by December 13 if you want to join the dinner.