IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kgu/wpaper/87.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Delegation and Limited Liability in a Modern Capitalistic Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Tetsuya Shinkai

    (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University)

  • Takao Ohkawa

    (Faculty of Economics, Ritsumeikan University)

  • Makoto Okamura

    (Economics Department, Ritsumeikan University and Hiroshima University)

  • Kozo Harimaya

    (Faculty of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University)

Abstract

We examine an effect of limited liability on strategic delegation in a Cournot duopoly with demand uncertainty. We establish that owners of each firm always delegate their tasks, decisions, and responsibility to a manager under limited liability, while they do not always do so under unlimited liability. This result is consistent with the fact that separation of ownership and management as well as limited liability prevail in many modern large companies.

Suggested Citation

  • Tetsuya Shinkai & Takao Ohkawa & Makoto Okamura & Kozo Harimaya, 2012. "Delegation and Limited Liability in a Modern Capitalistic Economy," Discussion Paper Series 87, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Apr 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:kgu:wpaper:87
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://192.218.163.163/RePEc/pdf/kgdp87.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Spulber,Daniel F., 2009. "The Theory of the Firm," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521736602, January.
    2. Franck, Bernard & Le Pape, Nicolas, 2008. "The commitment value of the debt: A reappraisal," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 607-615, March.
    3. Federico Etro, 2010. "Endogenous market structures and the optimal financial structure," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(4), pages 1333-1352, November.
    4. Vickers, John, 1985. "Delegation and the Theory of the Firm," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(380a), pages 138-147, Supplemen.
    5. Fershtman, Chaim & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Equilibrium Incentives in Oligopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 927-940, December.
    6. Povel, Paul & Raith, Michael, 2004. "Financial constraints and product market competition: ex ante vs. ex post incentives," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 917-949, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tetsuya Shinkai & Takao Ohkawa & Makoto Okamura & Kozo Harimaya, 2012. "Why did the Dutch East India Co. outperform the British East India Co.? —A theoretical explanation based on the objective of the firm and limited liability—," Discussion Paper Series 96, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Dec 2012.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tetsuya Shinkai & Takao Ohkawa & Makoto Okamura & Kozo Harimaya, 2015. "Strategic Delegation of Indebted Firms in a Duopoly with Uncertain Demand," Discussion Paper Series 135, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Sep 2015.
    2. Tetsuya Shinkai & Takao Ohkawa & Makoto Okamura & Kozo Harimaya, 2012. "Why did the Dutch East India Co. outperform the British East India Co.? —A theoretical explanation based on the objective of the firm and limited liability—," Discussion Paper Series 96, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised Dec 2012.
    3. Etro, Federico, 2011. "Endogenous market structures and contract theory: Delegation, principal-agent contracts, screening, franchising and tying," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 463-479, May.
    4. Sai Zhao & Lei Fang, 2023. "Debt financing, first‐mover advantage, and vertical product differentiation," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 502-514, January.
    5. Aghion, Philippe & Dewatripont, Mathias & Legros, Patrick & Zingales, Luigi (ed.), 2016. "The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199826216.
    6. Federico Etro, 2010. "Endogenous Market Structures and Contract Theory," Working Papers 181, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2010.
    7. Michael L. Katz, 2006. "Observable Contracts as Commitments: Interdependent Contracts and Moral Hazard," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 685-706, September.
    8. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2014. "Contracts, Ownership, and Industrial Organization: Past and Future," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(suppl_1), pages 82-117.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    10. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "Executive Compensation, Strategic Competition, and Relative Performance Evaluation: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1999-2043, December.
    11. Corts, Kenneth S. & Neher, Darwin V., 2003. "Credible delegation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 395-407, June.
    12. Newbery, David M. & Greve, Thomas, 2017. "The strategic robustness of oligopoly electricity market models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 124-132.
    13. Caillaud, Bernard & Rey, Patrick, 1995. "Strategic aspects of vertical delegation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 421-431, April.
    14. Ya-Chin Wang, 2013. "Optimal R&D Policy and Managerial Delegation Under Vertically Differentiated Duopoly," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(4), pages 605-624, December.
    15. Kyung Hwan Baik, 2007. "Equilibrium Contingent Compensation in Contests with Delegation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(4), pages 986-1002, April.
    16. Claude d'Aspremont & Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira & Louis-André Gérard-Varet, 2007. "Competition For Market Share Or For Market Size: Oligopolistic Equilibria With Varying Competitive Toughness," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(3), pages 761-784, August.
    17. David Gaddis Ross, 2012. "On Evaluation Costs in Strategic Factor Markets: The Implications for Competition and Organizational Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(4), pages 791-804, April.
    18. Ya‐chin Wang & Leonard F.s. Wang, 2009. "Equivalence Of Competition Mode In A Vertically Differentiated Duopoly With Delegation," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 77(4), pages 577-590, December.
    19. Evangelos Mitrokostas & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2008. "Do Firms' Owners Delegate both Short-Run and Long-Run Decisions to Their Managers in Equilibrium?," Working Papers 0815, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    20. Xu, Tianli & Xu, Longbing & Zhu, Siyuan, 2023. "Common ownership and executive pay-for-performance sensitivity: Evidence from China," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    limited liability; delegation; managerial incentives; and Cournot duopoly;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kgu:wpaper:87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Toshihiro Okada (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dekgujp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.