期刊名称：Discussion Papers in Economics / Department of Economics, Royal Holloway
出版年度：2004
卷号：2004
出版社：University of London
摘要：An essential ingredient in models of career concerns is ex ante uncertainty about an
agent’s type. This paper shows how career concerns can arise even in the absence of any
such ex ante uncertainty, if the unobservable actions that an agent takes influence his future
productivity. By implementing effort in mixed strategies the principal can endogenously
induce uncertainty about the agent’s ex post productivity and generate reputational incentives.
Our main result is that creating such ambiguity can be optimal for the principal,
even though this exposes the agent to additional risk and reduces output. This finding
demonstrates the importance of mixed strategies in contracting environments with imperfect
commitment, which contrasts with standard agency models where implementing
mixed strategy actions typically is not optimal if pure strategies are also implementable.
