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Optimal Incentives under Moral Hazard and Heterogeneous Agents: Evidence from Production Contracts Data

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  • Dubois, Pierre
  • Vukina, Tomislav

Abstract

In this paper we develop an analytical framework for the estimation of the structural model parameters of an incentive contract under moral hazard with heterogeneous agents. Using micro level data on swine production contract settlements, we confirm that contract farmers are heterogenous with respect to their risk aversion and that this heterogeneity affects the principal's allocation of production inputs across farmers. Assuming that contracts are optimal, we obtain estimates of a lower and an upper bound of agents' reservation utilities. We show that farmers with higher risk aversion have lower outside opportunities and hence lower reservation utilities.
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  • Dubois, Pierre & Vukina, Tomislav, 2008. "Optimal Incentives under Moral Hazard and Heterogeneous Agents: Evidence from Production Contracts Data," IDEI Working Papers 393, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    • Handle: RePEc:ide:wpaper:3384
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Zhen Wang & Tomislav Vukina, 2017. "Welfare effects of payment truncation in piece rate tournaments," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 219-249, April.
    2. George-Levi Gayle & Limor Golan & Robert A. Miller, "undated". "Promotion, Turover and Compensation in the Executive Market," GSIA Working Papers 2008-E32, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    3. Biroli, Pietro & Zwyssig, Laura, 2021. "Moral Hazard Heterogeneity: Genes and Health Insurance Influence Smoking after a Health Shock," IZA Discussion Papers 14176, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Jiaojie Han & Amnon Rapoport & Rui Zhao, 2017. "Inequity-aversion and relative kindness intention jointly determine the expenditure of effort in project teams," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-23, May.
    5. Niemi, Jarkko K., 2012. "Designing coordination contracts to support efficient flow-scheduling in pork chain," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 125208, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Deng, Wendong & Hendrikse, George, 2014. "Social capital and incentives in the provision of product quality by cooperatives," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182687, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Niemi, Jarkko K. & Liu, Xing & Pietola, Kyosti, 2011. "Price volatility and return on pig fattening under different price- quantity contract regimes," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114614, European Association of Agricultural Economists.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

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