IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v128y2015icp48-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multiple tasks and political organization

Author

Listed:
  • Hamami, Tom

Abstract

Consider an environment such as a political election where a principal requires the completion of multiple tasks, but an agent can only be rewarded with a hire/fire decision rather than an endogenously chosen monetary payment. When the principal hires a single agent to perform multiple tasks, the agent allocates effort between the tasks inefficiently. I demonstrate that, even though hiring multiple agents completely mitigates this effort distortion problem, the principal is still better off hiring a single agent if the (exogenous) rewards for the tasks are sufficiently different. In contrast to similar results in the multi-task literature, this finding is not driven by risk aversion or noise. Rather, it is a direct result of the restricted contract space inherent to the environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamami, Tom, 2015. "Multiple tasks and political organization," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 48-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:128:y:2015:i:c:p:48-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2015.01.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176515000208
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2015.01.010?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. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    2. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    3. Laux, Christian, 2001. "Limited-Liability and Incentive Contracting with Multiple Projects," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(3), pages 514-526, Autumn.
    4. Gersbach, Hans & Liessem, Verena, 2008. "Incentive contracts and elections for politicians with multi-task problems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 401-411, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Elisabetta Iossa & David Martimort, 2012. "Risk allocation and the costs and benefits of public--private partnerships," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 43(3), pages 442-474, September.
    2. Balmaceda, Felipe & Balseiro, Santiago R. & Correa, José R. & Stier-Moses, Nicolás E., 2016. "Bounds on the welfare loss from moral hazard with limited liability," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 137-155.
    3. Leon Yang Chu & David E.M. Sappington, 2009. "Implementing high‐powered contracts to motivate intertemporal effort supply," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(2), pages 296-316, June.
    4. Bo Chen & Yu Chen & David Rietzke, 2020. "Simple contracts under observable and hidden actions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 1023-1047, June.
    5. David Martimort & Flavio Menezes & Myrna Wooders & ELISABETTA IOSSA & DAVID MARTIMORT, 2015. "The Simple Microeconomics of Public-Private Partnerships," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 4-48, February.
    6. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    7. Jenny Kragl & Anja Schöttner, 2014. "Wage Floors, Imperfect Performance Measures, And Optimal Job Design," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 525-550, May.
    8. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2005. "Allocating Control in Agency Problems with Limited Liability and Sequential Hidden Actions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 318-336, Summer.
    9. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    10. Antonio Sánchez Soliño, 2019. "Sustainability of Public Services: Is Outsourcing the Answer?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-12, December.
    11. Inés Macho-Stadler & David Pérez-Castrillo, 2018. "Moral hazard: Base models and two extensions," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 16, pages 453-485, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Michael T. Rauh & Giulio Seccia, 2010. "Agency and Anxiety," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 87-116, March.
      • Michael T. Rauh & Giulio Seccia, 2006. "Agency and Anxiety," Working Papers 2006-02, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    13. Fuhai Hong & Dong Zhang, 2023. "Bureaucratic beliefs and law enforcement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 357-379, September.
    14. Araujo, Aloisio & Moreira, Humberto & Tsuchida, Marcos, 2007. "The Trade-Off Between Incentives and Endogenous Risk," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 27(2), November.
    15. Kragl, Jenny & Schöttner, Anja, 2011. "Wage floors and optimal job design," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 01/2011, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    16. Orlov, Dmitry, 2022. "Frequent monitoring in dynamic contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    17. Donze, Jocelyn & Gunnes, Trude, 2018. "Becoming “We” instead of “I”, identity management and incentives in the workplace," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 105-120.
    18. Ben Lockwood & Francesco Porcelli, 2013. "Incentive Schemes for Local Government: Theory and Evidence from Comprehensive Performance Assessment in England," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 254-286, August.
    19. Nicola Lacetera, 2003. "Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations," Microeconomics 0312004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Meyer, Margaret A. & Olsen, Trond E. & Torsvik, Gaute, 1996. "Limited intertemporal commitment and job design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 401-417, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Multiple tasks; Elections; Job design; Government structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:ecolet:v:128:y:2015:i:c:p:48-50. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.