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Working Paper
A Calculus Proof of Proposition 1 in "On the Moral Hazard Problem Without the First-Order Approach"
Author(s)
In Kadan and Swinkels (2012a) we establish a general expression for the effect simultaneously tightening the minimum payment and individual rationality constraints
in a general moral hazard problem. The result there does not rely on the validity of
the first order approach (FOA), allows for multidimensional signals and effort, and
requires no order structure on signals or differentiability of the distribution function.
The proof of this result is established using a variational argument, which relies on
differentiability and integrability results. In standard moral hazard problems, when
the FOA is valid, this result becomes quite simple. Below we provide such a simple
version of this result. We also provide a calculus proof of this result that does not
hinge on a variational argument. The notation we use is as in Kadan and Swinkels
(2012b).
Date Published:
2013
Citations:
Kadan, Ohad, Jeroen Swinkels. 2013. A Calculus Proof of Proposition 1 in "On the Moral Hazard Problem Without the First-Order Approach".