IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v39y1995i2p68-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Choosing the Sharing Rate for Incentive Contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Rajeev K. Goel

Abstract

This paper analyzes the choice of the sharing rate in an incentive contract by a cost minimizing principal. Under an incentive contract, a principal pays some fraction of project costs (called the sharing rate) while the agent pays the rest. The main contribution of this work is that we are able to interpret the marginal conditions of the principal's choice of the sharing rate in terms of the equilibrium bid as a function of cost-and bid elasticities and project costs. We find that adverse outcomes from the principal's perspective arise when the bid elasticity is low and the cost elasticity is high. Using our results, a principal can predict the cost-minimizing bid before conducting an auction. The comparative static effect of a change in the exogenous number of bidders on the sharing rate is shown to depend on the market structure. Potential applications of these results are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajeev K. Goel, 1995. "Choosing the Sharing Rate for Incentive Contracts," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 39(2), pages 68-72, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:39:y:1995:i:2:p:68-72
    DOI: 10.1177/056943459503900209
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943459503900209
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943459503900209?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven Shavell, 1979. "Risk Sharing and Incentives in the Principal and Agent Relationship," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 55-73, Spring.
    2. J. Michael Cummins, 1977. "Incentive Contracting for National Defense: A Problem of Optimal Risk Sharing," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 8(1), pages 168-185, Spring.
    3. Martin L. Weitzman, 1980. "Efficient Incentive Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(4), pages 719-730.
    4. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Tirole, Jean, 1987. "Auctioning Incentive Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 921-937, October.
    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. Sakuma, Akimitsu, 1982. "Imperfect Information and Contracts Between Two Firms," Hitotsubashi Journal of commerce and management, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 17(1), pages 25-41, October.
    2. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    3. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2016. "Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström: Contract Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2016-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    4. David E. M. Sappington, 1991. "Incentives in Principal-Agent Relationships," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 45-66, Spring.
    5. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.
    6. Peter-J. Jost, 2023. "Auditing versus monitoring and the role of commitment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 463-496, June.
    7. Dionne, Georges, 1998. "La mesure empirique des problèmes d’information," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 74(4), pages 585-606, décembre.
    8. Anil Aswani & Zuo-Jun Max Shen & Auyon Siddiq, 2019. "Data-Driven Incentive Design in the Medicare Shared Savings Program," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(4), pages 1002-1026, July.
    9. François MARECHAL, 2003. "Should we base procurement rules on the competition of linear incentive contracts ?," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.07, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    10. Barbosa, Klenio, 2009. "Free Riding in Procurement Design," TSE Working Papers 09-128, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    11. Mark S. Thompson, 1983. "Health Versus Money," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 3(3), pages 285-297, August.
    12. Venkatasubramanian, Venkat & Luo, Yu & Sethuraman, Jay, 2015. "How much inequality in income is fair? A microeconomic game theoretic perspective," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 435(C), pages 120-138.
    13. Winston Harrington & Richard D. Morgenstern & Peter Nelson, 2000. "On the accuracy of regulatory cost estimates," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 297-322.
    14. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 1992. "Les contrats auto-exécutoires et la théorie des institutions du marché du travail," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 68(3), pages 433-451, septembre.
    15. Chifeng Dai, 2022. "Optimal risk sharing with ex post private information: Rules versus discretion," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(1), pages 160-184, July.
    16. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2005. "Company Financial Structure: A Survey and Implications for Developing Economies," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Green & Colin Kirkpatrick & Victor Murinde (ed.), Finance and Development, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Celentani, Marco & Ganuza, Juan-Jose, 2002. "Corruption and competition in procurement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1273-1303, July.
    18. Epstien, Gerald & Gintis, Herbert, 1989. "International Capital Markets and the Limits of National Economic Policy," WIDER Working Papers 295606, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Olmos, Marta Fernandez & Martinez, Jorge Rosell, 2011. "The Quality-Quantity Trade-off in the Principal-Agent Framework," Agricultural Economics Review, Greek Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, January.
    20. Quintero Jaramillo, Jose E., 2004. "Liquidity constraints and credit subsidies in auctions," DEE - Working Papers. Business Economics. WB wb040604, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía de la Empresa.

    More about this item

    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:sae:amerec:v:39:y:1995:i:2:p:68-72. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    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.