Essays In Principal Agent Theory

Essays in Principal-agent Theory

Essays in Accounting Theory in Honour of Joel S. Demski

Essays on Accounting Theory in Honour of Joel S. Demski is a collection of previously unpublished essays on accounting theory. The contributors are students, collaborators, colleagues and friends of Professor Joel S. Demski. Most of the contributors share Professor Demski’s view of accounting as the production and consumption of a very special and powerful economic good called information. Like Professor Demski, they also prefer an economic analytic approach to accounting theory. However, some contributors have chosen other perspectives on the field of accounting. The book also contains an extensive review of Professor Demski’s own contributions, to the theory of accounting over the past four decades, written by Jerry Feltham, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. The integration of Accounting and the Economics of information worked out by Joel Demski and those he inspired has revolutionized accounting thought.

Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives

Agency Theory is a new branch of economics which focusses on the roles of information and of incentives when individuals cooperate with respect to the utilisation of resources. Basic approaches are coming from microeco nomic theory as well as from risk analysis. Among the broad variety of ap plications are: the many designs of contractual arrangements, organiza tions, and institutions as well as the manifold aspects of the separation of ownership and control so fundamental for business finance. After some twenty years of intensive research in the field of information economics it might be timely to present the most basic issues, questions, models, and applications. This volume Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives offers introductory surveys as well as results of individual rese arch that seem to shape that field of information economics appropriately. Some 30 authors were invited to present their subjects in such a way that students could easily become acquainted with the main ideas of informa tion economics. So the aim of Agency Theory, Information, and Incentives is to introduce students at an intermediate level and to accompany their work in classes on microeconomics, information economics, organization, management theory, and business finance. The topics selected form the eight sections of the book: 1. Agency Theory and Risk Sharing 2. Information and Incentives 3. Capital Markets and Moral Hazard 4. Financial Contracting and Dividends 5. External Accounting and Auditing 6. Coordination in Groups 7. Property Rights and Fairness 8. Agency Costs.