Game-Playing Agents and the Use of Contracts as             Precommitments
{'Code': '04050100', 'Directorate': {'Abbreviation': 'SBE', 'LongName': 'Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie'}, 'Division': {'Abbreviation': 'SES', 'LongName': 'Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences'}}
{'SignBlockName': 'Daniel H. Newlon', 'PO_EMAI': None, 'PO_PHON': None}
The players in most economically important games are agents, not                principals.  For example, almost all significant firms are run by               professional managers who are not owners of the firms that they                 direct, or who own only some small fraction of the outstanding                  shares of the corporations.  Bargaining games, too, typically                   involve agents as players.  The bargaining on the selling side is               conducted by an agent, e.g., an automobile salesman.  Moreover,                 most transactions in intermediate goods markets involve agents on               both sides simultaneously, e.g., the purchasing agent of one                    company bargaining with the salesman of a supplier.                                                                                                             Game theory has been widely applied to economic problems under                  the assumption that the games are played among principals.  This                project examines a central, and often more realistic, class of                  two-stage games in which some or all of the principals hire                     agents in the first stage and these agents (and any principals                  who do not hire agents) then play a second-stage game.                                                                                                          It is well understood that if: (1) only one principal has access                to the use of an agent; (2) the agency contract is observable to                the other players in the game; and (3) it is common knowledge                   that the contract cannot be renegotiated, then the contract can                 serve as a form of binding precommitment that induces the agent                 to act as a Stackelberg leader in the second-stage game.  The                   effects of agency when any of these three conditions is not met                 are much less well understood.                                                                                                                                  The proposed research is intended to shed light on the effects of               agency when these three conditions are not satisfied.  A variety                of applications will be considered, including oligopoly, vertical               restraints, international trade policy, and the interrelationship               between financial structure and product-market competition.
{'FirstName': 'Michael', 'LastName': 'Katz', 'PI_MID_INIT': 'L', 'PI_SUFX_NAME': None, 'PI_FULL_NAME': 'Michael L Katz', 'EmailAddress': None, 'NSF_ID': '000183624', 'StartDate': '06/01/1988', 'EndDate': None, 'RoleCode': 'Principal Investigator'}
{'Name': 'University of California-Berkeley', 'CityName': 'BERKELEY', 'ZipCode': '947101749', 'PhoneNumber': '5106433891', 'StreetAddress': '1608 4TH ST STE 201', 'StreetAddress2': None, 'CountryName': 'United States', 'StateName': 'California', 'StateCode': 'CA', 'CONGRESSDISTRICT': '12', 'CONGRESS_DISTRICT_ORG': 'CA12', 'ORG_UEI_NUM': 'GS3YEVSS12N6', 'ORG_LGL_BUS_NAME': 'REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, THE', 'ORG_PRNT_UEI_NUM': None}
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{'Code': '1320', 'Text': 'Economics'}
{'url': 'https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/download?DownloadFileName=1987&All=true', 'xml': '8722198.xml'}