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Moral hazard, competition and contract design: empirical evidence from managerial, franchised and entrepreneurial businesses in Norway

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  • Arne Nygaard
  • Ingunn Myrtveit

Abstract

Agency theory emphasizes the role of ownership, control and incentives in encouraging managers to improve efficiency. Owners often tie managers to contracts that reduce conflict of interest between owners and managers. The differences between alternative business ownership structures have been investigated. According to theory, we expect managers with an outcome-dependent dealer contract to be more efficient than managers with a more integrated and less performance based employee dealer contract. We also analyse how competitive pressure might reduce the moral hazard problem and therefore affect contract design. Berle and Means (The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Macmillan, New York, 1932) long ago stated that the market mechanism could constrain the agency problem. Even so, this problem has scarcely been investigated empirically. This paper also considers the contractual effect of potential monitoring costs, education and relationship age in a model tested on data from 175 dealer contracts in a multinational oil company.

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  • Arne Nygaard & Ingunn Myrtveit, 2000. "Moral hazard, competition and contract design: empirical evidence from managerial, franchised and entrepreneurial businesses in Norway," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 349-356.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:32:y:2000:i:3:p:349-356
    DOI: 10.1080/000368400322778
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    1. Utgård, Jakob & Nygaard, Arne & Dahlstrom, Robert, 2015. "Franchising, local market characteristics and alcohol sales to minors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2117-2124.
    2. Charles Zech, 2007. "The Agency Relationship in Churches: An Empirical Analysis," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 727-746, October.
    3. Ozgur Arslan-Ayaydin & Darold Barnum & Mehmet Baha Karan & Atilla Hakan Ozdemir, 2014. "How is Moral Hazard Related to Financing R&D and Innovations?," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4), pages 111-131.
    4. Dahlstrom, Robert & Haugland, Sven A. & Nygaard, Arne & Rokkan, Aksel I., 2009. "Governance structures in the hotel industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 841-847, August.
    5. Kirstein, Roland & Kirstein, Annette, 2004. "Inefficient Intra-Firm Incentives Can Stabilize Cartels in Cournot Oligopolies," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2004-09, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    6. Garry D. Bruton & Salim Chahine & Igor Filatotchev, 2009. "Founders, Private Equity Investors, and Underpricing in Entrepreneurial IPOs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(4), pages 909-928, July.

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