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Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence Costs and Contract Design

Author

Listed:
  • Brice Corgnet

    (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Navarra)

  • Ismael Rodriguez Lara

    (Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico, Universidad de Alicante)

Abstract

We develop a principal-agent model in which the principal has access to hard and soft information about the agent's level of effort. We model the soft signal as being informative about the agent's level of effort but manipulable by the agent at a cost. We show that the presence of influence activities increases the cost of implementing the efficient level of effort for the principal. We also show that the manipulability of the soft signal leads to wage compression. However, when influence costs affect negatively the agent's productivity we establish that the design of influence-free contracts by the principal may lead to high-powered incentives. This result implies that high-productivity workers may face incentives schemes that are more responsive and give more weight to hard evidence compared to low-productivity workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Brice Corgnet & Ismael Rodriguez Lara, 2009. "Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence Costs and Contract Design," Faculty Working Papers 13/09, School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Navarra.
    • Handle: RePEc:una:unccee:wp1309
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Corgnet, Brice & Martin, Ludivine & Ndodjang, Peguy & Sutan, Angela, 2019. "On the merit of equal pay: Performance manipulation and incentive setting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 23-45.
    2. De Chiara, Alessandro & Livio, Luca, 2017. "The threat of corruption and the optimal supervisory task," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 172-186.
    3. Corgnet, Brice & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2013. "Are you a good employee or simply a good guy? Influence costs and contract design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 259-272.
    4. Keeyoung Rhee, 2021. "Optimal Contracts under Moral Hazard and Costly Lying," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 37, pages 115-140.
    5. Brice Corgnet & Ludivine Martin & Peguy Ndodjang & Angela Sutan, 2015. "On the Merit of Equal Pay: When Influence Activities Interact with Incentive Setting," Working Papers 15-09, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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