IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1505.04587.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Failures of Bonus Plans

Author

Listed:
  • David Lagziel
  • Ehud Lehrer

Abstract

A decision maker (DM) has some funds invested through two investment firms. She wishes to allocate additional funds according to the firms' earnings. The DM, on the one hand, tries to maximize the total expected earnings, while the firms, on the other hand, try to maximize the overall expected funds they manage. In this paper we prove that, for every market, the DM has an optimal bonus policy such that the firms are motivated to act according to the interests of the DM. On the other hand, we also prove that the only policy that is optimal in every market, is independent of the actions and earnings of the firms.

Suggested Citation

  • David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer, 2015. "On the Failures of Bonus Plans," Papers 1505.04587, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1505.04587
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1505.04587
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dean P. Foster & H. Peyton Young, 2010. "Gaming Performance Fees By Portfolio Managers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1435-1458.
    2. Lehrer, Ehud, 2001. "Any Inspection Is Manipulable," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1333-1347, September.
    3. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    4. , & ,, 2006. "Financial equilibrium with career concerns," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(1), pages 67-93, March.
    5. Alvaro Sandroni, 2003. "The reproducible properties of correct forecasts," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 32(1), pages 151-159, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Maksumov, Rashid, 2010. "Critical analysis of Chapter 23 of Keynes’s Notes on Mercantilism in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)," EconStor Research Reports 155318, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    8. Gabriel Carroll, 2015. "Robustness and Linear Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 536-563, February.
    9. ,, 2008. "Many inspections are manipulable," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(3), September.
    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. David Lagziel & Ehud Lehrer, 2021. "Transferable deposits as a screening mechanism," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(2), pages 483-504, March.
    2. Dean Foster & Rakesh Vohra, 2011. "Calibration: Respice, Adspice, Prospice," Discussion Papers 1537, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    3. Olszewski, Wojciech, 2015. "Calibration and Expert Testing," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Colin, Stewart, 2011. "Nonmanipulable Bayesian testing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 2029-2041, September.
    5. Al-Najjar, Nabil I. & Sandroni, Alvaro & Smorodinsky, Rann & Weinstein, Jonathan, 2010. "Testing theories with learnable and predictive representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2203-2217, November.
    6. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2006. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Discussion Papers 1425, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    7. Yossi Feinberg & Nicolas Lambert, 2015. "Mostly calibrated," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(1), pages 153-163, February.
    8. Kavaler, Itay & Smorodinsky, Rann, 2019. "On comparison of experts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 94-109.
    9. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2008. "Manipulability of Future-Independent Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1437-1466, November.
    10. Lagziel, David & Lehrer, Ehud, 2018. "Reward schemes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 21-40.
    11. Foster, Dean P. & Young, H. Peyton, 2011. "A Strategy-Proof Test of Portfolio Returns," Working Papers 11-50, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    12. Dean P. Foster & H. Peyton Young, 2012. "A strategy-proof test of portfolio returns," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(5), pages 671-683, March.
    13. Wojciech Olszewski & Alvaro Sandroni, 2009. "Strategic Manipulation of Empirical Tests," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 57-70, February.
    14. , & ,, 2013. "Expressible inspections," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), May.
    15. Aikman, David & Nelson, Benjamin & Tanaka, Misa, 2015. "Reputation, risk-taking, and macroprudential policy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 428-439.
    16. Englmaier, Florian & Filipi, Ales & Singh, Ravi, 2010. "Incentives, reputation and the allocation of authority," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 413-427, November.
    17. 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.
    18. Eddie Dekel & Yossi Feinberg, 2006. "Non-Bayesian Testing of a Stochastic Prediction," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 893-906.
    19. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2015. "Money Doctors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 91-114, February.
      • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, "undated". "Money Doctors," Working Paper 69721, Harvard University OpenScholar.
      • Gennaioli, Nicola & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 2014. "Money Doctors," Scholarly Articles 12965657, Harvard University Department of Economics.
      • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2012. "Money Doctors," Working Papers 464, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
      • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 2012. "Money Doctors," NBER Working Papers 18174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, "undated". "Money Doctors," Working Paper 228501, Harvard University OpenScholar.
      • Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2012. "Money doctors," Economics Working Papers 1355, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    20. Sylvain Chassang, 2013. "Calibrated Incentive Contracts," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(5), pages 1935-1971, September.

    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:arx:papers:1505.04587. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.