Rank Uncertainty in Organizations
委托人通过私下向代理人团队提供与团队成功挂钩的奖金来激励其努力工作。我们研究委托人将努力工作实施为唯一均衡的最优激励方案。该方案利用排名不确定性来应对策略不确定性。每个代理人仅被告知其排名分布和自身奖金，后者使得只要更高排名的代理人努力工作，努力工作便成为其占优策略。若代理人是对称的，则其奖金相同。因此，歧视严格次优，这与公开合同情形（Winter 2004）形成鲜明对比。我们刻画了代理人的排名与报酬如何随不对称的努力成本而变化。（JEL D23, D62, D81, D82, D86）
英文原文
A principal incentivizes a team of agents to work by privately offering them bonuses contingent on team success. We study the principal’s optimal incentive scheme that implements work as a unique equilibrium. This scheme leverages rank uncertainty to address strategic uncertainty. Each agent is informed only of a ranking distribution and his own bonus, the latter making work dominant provided that higher-rank agents work. If agents are symmetric, their bonuses are identical. Thus, discrimination is strictly suboptimal, in sharp contrast with the case of public contracts (Winter 2004). We characterize how agents’ ranking and compensation vary with asymmetric effort costs. (JEL D23, D62, D81, D82, D86)