IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/germec/v18y2017i4p411-443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bounded Rationality in Principal-Agent Relationships

Author

Listed:
  • Erlei Mathias

    (Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany)

  • Schenk-Mathes Heike

    (Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany)

Abstract

We conducted six treatments of a standard moral hazard experiment with hidden action. The behavior in all treatments and periods was inconsistent with established agency theory. In the early periods, behavior differed significantly between treatments. This difference largely vanished in the final periods. We used logit agent quantal response equilibrium (LAQRE) as a device to grasp boundedly rational behavior and found the following: (1) LAQRE predictions are much closer to subjects’ behavior in the laboratory; (2) LAQRE probabilities and experimental behavior show remarkably similar patterns; and (3) including social preferences in LAQRE does not better explain the experimental data; (4) LAQRE cannot explain the contract offers of some players who seem to choose some focal contract parameters.

Suggested Citation

  • Erlei Mathias & Schenk-Mathes Heike, 2017. "Bounded Rationality in Principal-Agent Relationships," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 411-443, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:germec:v:18:y:2017:i:4:p:411-443
    DOI: 10.1111/geer.12111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/geer.12111
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/geer.12111?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    2. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Quantal Response Equilibrium and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 247-272, May.
    3. Eva I. Hoppe & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2013. "Contracting under Incomplete Information and Social Preferences: An Experimental Study," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1516-1544.
    4. Keser, Claudia & Willinger, Marc, 2007. "Theories of behavior in principal-agent relationships with hidden action," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 1514-1533, August.
    5. François Cochard & Marc Willinger, 2005. "Fair Offers in a Repeated Principal-Agent Relationship with Hidden Actions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(286), pages 225-240, May.
    6. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A., 2000. "Asymmetric inequality aversion and noisy behavior in alternating-offer bargaining games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 1079-1089, May.
    7. Ying-Ju Chen & Xiaojian Zhao, 2013. "Solution Concepts of Principal-Agent Models with Unawareness of Actions," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-24, August.
    8. Hoffman, Elizabeth & Spitzer, Matthew L, 1982. "The Coase Theorem: Some Experimental Tests," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 73-98, April.
    9. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
    10. Richard Mckelvey & Thomas Palfrey, 1998. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Extensive Form Games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 9-41, June.
    11. C. Monica Capra, 1999. "Anomalous Behavior in a Traveler's Dilemma?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 678-690, June.
    12. McKelvey Richard D. & Palfrey Thomas R., 1995. "Quantal Response Equilibria for Normal Form Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 6-38, July.
    13. Erlei, Mathias, 2008. "Heterogeneous social preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 436-457, March.
    14. Ross, Stephen A, 1973. "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 134-139, May.
    15. Werner Güth & Manfred Königstein & Judit Kovács & Enikõ Zala-Mezõ, 2001. "Fairness Within Firms: The Case Of One Principal And Multiple Agents," Schmalenbach Business Review (sbr), LMU Munich School of Management, vol. 53(2), pages 82-101, April.
    16. 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.
    17. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    18. Mathias Erlei & J. Philipp Siemer, 2014. "Endogenous Property Rights in a Hold-up Experiment," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 237-270, May.
    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. Zhang, Boyu & Hofbauer, Josef, 2016. "Quantal response methods for equilibrium selection in 2×2 coordination games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-31.
    2. Philip A. Haile & Ali Hortaçsu & Grigory Kosenok, 2008. "On the Empirical Content of Quantal Response Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 180-200, March.
    3. Simon P. Anderson & Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2002. "The Logit Equilibrium: A Perspective on Intuitive Behavioral Anomalies," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(1), pages 21-47, July.
    4. Camerer, Colin F. & Ho, Teck-Hua, 2015. "Behavioral Game Theory Experiments and Modeling," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    5. Lejarraga, Tomás & Lucena, Abel & Rubí-Barceló, Antoni, 2020. "Beliefs estimated from choices in Proposer-Responder Games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 442-459.
    6. Goeree, Jacob K. & Holt, Charles A. & Palfrey, Thomas R., 2002. "Quantal Response Equilibrium and Overbidding in Private-Value Auctions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 247-272, May.
    7. Jacob K. Goeree & Charles A. Holt, 2001. "Ten Little Treasures of Game Theory and Ten Intuitive Contradictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1402-1422, December.
    8. Jorge Alcalde-Unzu & Flip Klijn & Marc Vorsatz, 2023. "Constrained school choice: an experimental QRE analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 587-624, October.
    9. Ioannou, Christos A. & Qi, Shi & Rustichini, Aldo, 2013. "A test of stability in a linear altruism model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 85-89.
    10. Fischbacher, Urs & Fong, Christina M. & Fehr, Ernst, 2009. "Fairness, errors and the power of competition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 527-545, October.
    11. Yefen Chen & Xuanming Su & Xiaobo Zhao, 2012. "Modeling Bounded Rationality in Capacity Allocation Games with the Quantal Response Equilibrium," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(10), pages 1952-1962, October.
    12. Wang, Bingtong & Li, Zhibin & Wang, Shunchao & Li, Meng & Ji, Ang, 2022. "Modeling bounded rationality in discretionary lane change with the quantal response equilibrium of game theory," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 145-161.
    13. Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Breitmoser, Yves & Bolle, Friedel, 2015. "Voluntary contributions by consent or dissent," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 106-121.
    14. He, Simin & Wu, Jiabin, 2020. "Compromise and coordination: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 216-233.
    15. Nunnari, Salvatore & Zapal, Jan, 2016. "Gambler's fallacy and imperfect best response in legislative bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 275-294.
    16. Nieken, Petra & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2012. "Repeated moral hazard and contracts with memory: A laboratory experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 1000-1008.
    17. Dieter Balkenborg & Rosemarie Nagel, 2016. "An Experiment on Forward vs. Backward Induction: How Fairness and Level k Reasoning Matter," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 17(3), pages 378-408, August.
    18. Quement, Mark T. Le & Marcin, Isabel, 2020. "Communication and voting in heterogeneous committees: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 449-468.
    19. Breitmoser, Yves & Schweighofer-Kodritsch, Sebastian, 2019. "Obviousness around the clock," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2019-203, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    20. Alcocer, Christian Diego & Jeitschko, Thomas D. & Shupp, Robert, 2020. "Naive and sophisticated mixing: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 157-173.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Experiment; logit agent quantal response equilibrium; moral hazard; hidden action;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

    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:bpj:germec:v:18:y:2017:i:4:p:411-443. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    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.