IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvir/1999006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Monitoring in Teams

Author

Listed:
  • Gautier, Axel

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES))

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of output quality control in a multi agent setting with moral hazard. The principal is in charge of a team of agents who produce the output. The marketing of this output can be either a success or entail huge losses. At the time of marketing the product, the principal is uncertain about its quality and can only observe an imperfect signal of it. This creates an ex post inefficiency (a successful project may not be undertaken) and a room for monitoring output's quality. In the paper, we describe when the principal will pay for this costly monitoring and its effect on agents' incentives to exert effort. We show that there are distortions ex ante in the contract offered by the principal and ex post in the continuation decision. The monitoring can only ensure ex post efficiency. The ex ante efficiency requires effort observability.

Suggested Citation

  • Gautier, Axel, 1999. "Optimal Monitoring in Teams," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 1999006, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvir:1999006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/9906.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    3. Jacques Crémer, 1995. "Arm's Length Relationships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 275-295.
    4. McAfee, R Preston & McMillan, John, 1991. "Optimal Contracts for Teams," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(3), pages 561-577, August.
    5. 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.
    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. Meijerink, Gerdien W., 2007. "If services aren't delivered, people won't pay: the role of measurement problems and monitoring in Payments for Environmental Services," 106th Seminar, October 25-27, 2007, Montpellier, France 7948, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

    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. Eitan Goldman & Gary Gorton, 2000. "The Visible Hand, the Invisible Hand and Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 7587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Oliver Hart & Jean Tirole, 1990. "Vertical Integration and Market Foreclosure," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(1990 Micr), pages 205-286.
    3. Alvarez, Sharon A., 2007. "Entrepreneurial rents and the theory of the firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 427-442, May.
    4. Bardhan, Pranab & Bowles, Samuel & Gintis, Herbert, 2000. "Wealth inequality, wealth constraints and economic performance," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 541-603, Elsevier.
    5. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    6. Sharon A. Alvarez, "undated". "Two Theories of Entrepreneurship: Alternative Assumptions and the Study of Entrepreneurial Action," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2005-19, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    7. Dew, Nicholas & Velamuri, S. Ramakrishna & Venkataraman, Sankaran, 2004. "Dispersed knowledge and an entrepreneurial theory of the firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 659-679, September.
    8. Alexander Radygin & Revold Entov & Marina Turuntseva & Alena Gontmakher & Harry Swain & Jeff Carruthers & Karen Minden & Cheryl Urban, 2002. "The problems of corporate governance in Russia and its regions," Published Papers 12, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2002.
    9. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    10. James Jr., Harvey S., 1998. "Are employment and managerial control equivalent? Evidence from an electronics producer," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 447-471, September.
    11. Zou, Liang, 1992. "Ownership structure and efficiency: An incentive mechanism approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 399-431, September.
    12. Alvarez, Sharon A. & Barney, Jay B., 2004. "Organizing rent generation and appropriation: toward a theory of the entrepreneurial firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 621-635, September.
    13. Rolf Bühner & Jörg Digmayer, 2003. "Aktienmarktreaktionen auf die Ankündigungen von Spin-offs und Sell-offs," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 55(7), pages 657-677, November.
    14. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    15. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    16. 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.
    17. Andrew F. Newman, 1991. "The Capital Market," Discussion Papers 951, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    18. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "The Governance of the New Enterprise," CRSP working papers 487, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    19. Alley Ibrahim S. & Adebayo Abimbola L. & Oligbi Blessing O., 2016. "Corporate Governance and Financial Performance Nexus: Any Bidirectional Causality?," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 50(1), pages 82-99, June.
    20. Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus Hierarchical Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 1891-1921, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Team; principal agent; monitoring;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:ctl:louvir:1999006. 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: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    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.