Often monitoring agencies (principal) do not have enough resources to monitor all agents, and violations are unavoidable. Questions arise regarding the structure of the monitoring scheme that minimizes the rate of violations. In dynamic monitoring problems, the principal can use the past behavior of agents to determine her monitoring policy. In this paper, we identify the optimal dynamic monitoring scheme when the principal has a commitment power, and show that in this scheme agents first “compete” in a tournament, where the one who is monitored more frequently wins. The winner of the tournament then enjoys lower monitoring intensity, and violates more in the long run.

通常，监督机构（委托人）没有足够的资源来监督所有代理人，违规行为在所难免。关于将违规率降至最低的监控计划的结构出现了问题。在动态监控问题中，委托人可以使用代理过去的行为来确定她的监控策略。在本文中，我们确定了当委托人具有承诺权时的最佳动态监控方案，并表明在该方案中，代理首先在锦标赛中“竞争”，其中被监控更频繁的一方获胜。锦标赛的获胜者则享有较低的监控强度，从长远来看，违规行为更多。