Bounding the Benefits of Stochastic Auditing: The Case of Risk-Neutral Agents
Posted: 17 Sep 1999
Abstract
In the context of a costly-state-verification model with a risk-neutral agent having limited liability, it has been postulated that allowing stochastic auditing reduces the asymmetric information problem to a trivial one: i.e., the first best can be approached arbitrarily closely with feasible contracts. This paper proves the postulate to be false: the surplus from feasible contracts is bounded strictly below the first-best surplus level. The bound is straightforward to compute in examples. The paper thus removes a justification for the restriction to deterministic auditing commonly made in the literature.
JEL Classification: D82, D20, G20, H26
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