Applied economics essays on third party intervention in the agency relationship.

Summary Agency theory has provided a thorough analysis of the conditions under which incentives reconcile the divergent interests of the principal and the agent. The essays presented in this dissertation assess the empirical relevance of these results in the face of third-party intervention in three typical situations: corrupt behavior, practice choices of medical specialists, and demand for moonlighting. First, corruption situations correspond to the interweaving of two contracts: a delegation contract, which binds a Principal and an Agent, and a corruption pact concluded between this Agent and a third party, called the Corruptor. We first review the recent literature on this issue, comparing existing results on the determinants of bribery behavior with the properties of each of these two contracts. We then show that the simultaneous existence of these two contracts puts the agent in front of a conflict of reciprocities. The results of the three-player experimental corruption game that we carry out confirm the importance of this mechanism. This reciprocity conflict is at the origin of a delegation effect that constitutes an additional explanation for the influence of the wage on bribery behavior. Second, the management of physicians' supply of care must meet conflicting objectives: controlling the cost of the health care system is the primary concern of the authorities administering it, while patients are primarily concerned with the quality of care (in terms of health). To better understand the ability of incentives to resolve this contradiction, we propose a theoretical and econometric analysis of the effects of the introduction of mixed remuneration in Quebec in 1999. Physicians' behaviour is described by their choices in terms of extensive margins (number of hours and procedures) and intensive margins (time spent with patients). The estimation results highlight the importance of flexibility in remuneration choices. Finally, the demand for moonlighting is an illegal activity whose profit depends on the market strategies adopted by competing firms. We propose a theoretical and experimental analysis of the effect of this particularity on the determinants of the demand for moonlighting. In particular, we focus on the potential effectiveness of a new instrument of repression: whistleblowing. We first show that the intensity of competition leads to Bertrand's curse: firms choose to escape but competition eliminates any benefit. We then study the conditions under which a market can implement collusive evasion, which allows for positive benefits from evasion. Whistleblowing is a favorable condition for the emergence of this strategy, and thus tends to encourage moonlighting. These results, confirmed by the observed behaviors, therefore militate against the introduction of this type of instrument. Taken together, these applications highlight the central role of the structure of interests held by the players involved: radically divergent, convergent but contradictory, or divergent but with a mechanism for reconciliation.