IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejtec/v12y2012i1n6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Career Concerns and Performance Reporting in Optimal Incentive Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Wolitzky Alexander

Abstract

In many contracting settings incentives are provided not only through transfers but also through performance reports to prospective employers. This paper studies a principal-agent model of this kind, in which the principal sends a non-verifiable report of output to a competitive labor market interested in the agent's ability. It is assumed that the principal and agent write an enforceable contract over both payments and reports as a function of output, and that the contract terms they agree to cannot be observed by the market. When contracts are unrestricted, reports cannot affect the agent's future wage in equilibrium, because the agent will always pay the principal to give a good report. Under limited liability, reports can affect future wages, but only by designating output as "good" or "bad." This informative performance reporting benefits the principal, and may more than make up for the costs imposed by limited liability. The possibilities that the market may have some direct information about output, that the principal may have additional information about the agent's ability, and that the principal may have psychological or reputational costs of misreporting output are also considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolitzky Alexander, 2012. "Career Concerns and Performance Reporting in Optimal Incentive Contracts," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-32, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejtec:v:12:y:2012:i:1:n:6
    DOI: 10.1515/1935-1704.1869
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/1935-1704.1869
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/1935-1704.1869?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Calzolari, Giacomo & Pavan, Alessandro, 2006. "On the optimality of privacy in sequential contracting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 168-204, September.
    2. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, December.
    3. Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1992. "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 468-505, June.
    4. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 1998. "Collusion and Delegation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(2), pages 280-305, Summer.
    5. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1994. "The Firm as an Incentive System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 972-991, September.
    6. Arijit Mukherjee, 2008. "Sustaining implicit contracts when agents have career concerns: the role of information disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 469-490, June.
    7. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Charles A. Wood, 2008. "The Sound of Silence in Online Feedback: Estimating Trading Risks in the Presence of Reporting Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 460-476, March.
    8. Eloïc Peyrache & Lucía Quesada, 2011. "Intermediaries, Credibility and Incentives to Collude," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1099-1133, December.
    9. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2003. "Collusion, Delegation and Supervision with Soft Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 253-279.
    10. George Baker & Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1994. "Subjective Performance Measures in Optimal Incentive Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 1125-1156.
    11. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    12. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 181-214, Fall.
    13. repec:bla:scandj:v:102:y:2000:i:4:p:725-36 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2000. "Mechanism Design with Collusion and Correlation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 309-342, March.
    15. Katerina Sherstyuk, 2000. "Performance Standards and Incentive Pay in Agency Contracts," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(4), pages 725-736, December.
    16. Jewitt, Ian & Kadan, Ohad & Swinkels, Jeroen M., 2008. "Moral hazard with bounded payments," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 59-82, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tim Hensel & Jens Robert Schöndube, 2022. "Big bath accounting and CEO turnover: the interplay between optimal contracts and career concerns," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(8), pages 1249-1281, October.
    2. Daniel Barron & Yingni Guo, 0. "The Use and Misuse of Coordinated Punishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 136(1), pages 471-504.
    3. Yasunari Tamada, 2019. "Disclosure of Contract Clauses and Career Concerns," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(3), pages 1968-1978.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Michela Cella, 2011. "Monitoring subcontracting in a suppliers' hierarchy," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 523-548, July.
    3. Asseyer, Andreas, 2016. "Optimal Information Disclosure and Collusion," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145779, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Pierre Fleckinger & David Martimort & Nicolas Roux, 2024. "Should They Compete or Should They Cooperate? The View of Agency Theory," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1589-1646, December.
    5. Angelucci, Charles & Russo, Antonio, 2012. "Moral Hazard in Hierarchies and Soft Information," TSE Working Papers 12-343, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    6. Baik, Bok & Evans, John H. & Kim, Kyonghee & Yanadori, Yoshio, 2016. "White collar incentives," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 34-49.
    7. Scholz, Julia, 2008. "Auswirkungen vertikaler Kollusionsprobleme auf die vertragliche Ausgestaltung von Kreditverkäufen," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 4581, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
    8. Dongsoo Shin & Roland Strausz, 2014. "Delegation and dynamic incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 495-520, September.
    9. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2006. "Reputations, Relationships and the Enforcement of Incomplete Contracts," CESifo Working Paper Series 1730, CESifo.
    10. Luis Garicano & Richard A. Posner, 2005. "Intelligence Failures: An Organizational Economics Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 151-170, Fall.
    11. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2000. "A Theory of Supervision with Endogenous Transaction Costs," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 1(2), pages 231-263, November.
    12. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2014. "Corruption, Intimidation, and Whistle-blowing: a Theory of Inference from Unverifiable Reports," NBER Working Papers 20315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Frederiksen, Anders & Lange, Fabian & Kriechel, Ben, 2017. "Subjective performance evaluations and employee careers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 408-429.
    14. Corgnet, Brice & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2013. "Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence costs and contract design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 259-272.
    15. De Chiara, Alessandro & Livio, Luca & Ponce, Jorge, 2018. "Flexible and mandatory banking supervision," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 86-104.
    16. Maitra, Pushkar & Mitra, Sandip & Mookherjee, Dilip & Motta, Alberto & Visaria, Sujata, 2017. "Financing smallholder agriculture: An experiment with agent-intermediated microloans in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 306-337.
    17. Fahad Khalil & Doyoung Kim & Jacques Lawarrée, 2013. "Contracts offered by bureaucrats," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(4), pages 686-711, December.
    18. Antoine Faure-Grimaud & Jean-Jacques Laffont & David Martimort, 2003. "Collusion, Delegation and Supervision with Soft Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 253-279.
    19. Eric S. Chou & Chien-Lung Chen, 2015. "Can Agents Be Better Off with Pay Caps?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1069-1090, October.
    20. von Negenborn, Colin & Pollrich, Martin, 2020. "Sweet lemons: Mitigating collusion in organizations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    21. Fahad Khalil & Jacques Lawarrée & Sungho Yun, 2010. "Bribery versus extortion: allowing the lesser of two evils," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 179-198, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejtec:v:12:y:2012:i:1:n:6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.