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Agency

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Agency Costs (Fama and Jensen 1983)

Contracting problem or principal/agent problem.
Agent is person tasked to do something on behalf of the principal.

Jensen and Meckling (1976)
Definition: “ We define an agency relationship as a contract under which one or more persons (the principal(s)) engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf, this involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent”.
Examples: Patient – Doctor (delegate authority to doctor to choose medication), Client – Lawyer, Client – Taxi Driver.

CEO and management team are agents of the stock holders with aim to raise stock price as high as possible.

Why hire agents?

* To access their skills or expertise(main reason) * To free up time for other things (Opportunity Cost),
Eg. Tiger Woods does not cut his own grass at home, he knows his grass. * To fulfil a legal requirement – eg. External Auditor, Priest for marriage. * To send a signal– eg. Hire best law firm or investment bank in a takeover situation, not necessarily because you need them but because it will intimidate the other side. Eg. Goldman Sachs is our banker.
Signalling to market place
The basic Problem
Agents are utility maximisers concerned mainly with their own happiness. Ie. They do not behave exactly as principal wishes they would.
“If both parties to the relationship are utility maximisers, there is a good reason to believe that the agent will not always act in the best interest of the principral.”
Hire agent but they will not do the job exactly how you want, there will be compromises in their own self interest undermining the relationship from the start.
A lot of the roles financial markets play is about agency cost reduction.
Limiting agency costs * “Monitoring” done by principal watching the agent * “Bonding” done by the agent (send a signal or bond with, trying to give indication to the market that you will behave well).
Monitoring
“The principal can limit divergences from his interest by establishing appropriate incentives for the agent and by incurring monitoring costs designed to limit the aberrant activities of the agent...Monitoring includes efforts to control the behaviour of the agent through budget restrictions, compensation policies, operating rules. Etc.”
Examples: Asking plumber to fix toilet, you may want to watch him or check up now and then.
In business world it may involve attending shareholder meetings or reading quarterly earnings releases or indirectly paying managers with incentive bonuses.
All monitoring activities have one thing in common, they are costly. Takes time, or involves out of pocket expenses. You monitor because you believe it is in your interest to do so.

Bonding
Agent doing things that signal to the market that he will behave well.
“In some situations it will pay the agent to expend resources (bonding costs) to guarantee the he will not take certain actions which would harm the principal or to ensure that the principal will be compensated if he does take such actions.”
Investing in Self Reputation
-A form of bonding is acquiring a professional credential, eg. To be a professor you need to have a PhD degree, to be a doctor you need to pass a medical exam.
-Any licensing requirement is a form of bonding and it not only demonstrates knowledge but that you invested the time and effort.
-Commitment is very valuable in the market place.
-Money back guarantee is a very good form of bonding; you get your money back if dissatisfied with service.

How much monitoring and bonding? * Optimal amount of monitoring and binding:
-Up to point where MC(marginal cost)=MB(marginal benefit) don’t monitor 24hrs a day and don’t stay in med school for 15 years
-Too much monitoring costs more than it saves
This still leaves some room for agent to go and goof off.
CEO for example gets monitored only four times a year (quarterly earnings release) when there is an earnings release.
This misbehaviour the agent engages in is called the residual loss. * The principal expects and tolerates a certain amount of “residual loss.”The agent understands the principal’s expectations.
Residual Loss * “There will be some divergence between the agent’s decisions and those decisions which would maximise the welfare of the principal.”Both sides understand that there will be some residual loss. It is not worth the time to monitor agent all the time. * Residual loss is not measured relative to the principal’s expectations, nor is it measured relative to a perfect performance by an ideal agent.
Two Important Results * Total Agency costs equal the sum of 1. Monitoring + 2. Bonding + 3. Residual Loss * All Agency costs are borne by the agent.
This is surprising because it is obvious some of these costs come out of the pocket of the principal, eg. Monitoring.
Theory says this gets shifted back to the agent, the agent essentially has to discount his fee because these costs are expected.

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