Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/100302 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2014: Evidenzbasierte Wirtschaftspolitik - Session: Contract Theory No. A12-V1
Publisher: 
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel und Hamburg
Abstract: 
This paper analyzes innovation races in a moral hazard setting. I develop a model where two competing entrepreneurs, financed by a single venture capitalist, work independently on the same project. The venture capitalist cannot observe the allocation of funds she provides, which creates a moral hazard problem. I identify properties of the optimal financing contract and compare them to two benchmarks: single entrepreneur and first best. In particular, if the entrepreneurs differ in their skills, the relevant question is whether it is profitable to employ the less skilled entrepreneur in addition to the more skilled one. I show that if the entrepreneurs do not differ in their skills too much, financing both of them indeed helps to alleviate the moral hazard problem. Moreover, it might be profitable to finance the less skilled entrepreneur, in addition more skilled one, even in cases where the former would not be employed in the first best.
JEL: 
D92
G24
O31
Document Type: 
Conference Paper

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