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Incentives in Markets, Firms and Governments

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Author Info
Daron Acemoglu
Michael Kremer
Atif Mian

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Abstract

Most government expenditure is on goods that yield primarily private benefits, such as education, pensions, and healthcare. We argue that markets are most advantageous in areas where high-powered incentives are desirable, but in areas where high-powered incentives stimulate unproductive signalling effort, firms, or even government, may have a comparative advantage. Firms may be able to weaken incentives and improve efficiency by obscuring information about individual workers' contribution to output, and thus reducing their willingness to signal through a moral-hazard-in-teams reasoing. However, firms themselves may be unable to commit to not providing greater compensation to employees who distort their effots to improve observed performance. Government organizations, on the other hand, often have to flatter wage schedules, thereby naturally weakening the power of incentives. We suggest that there are also endogenous reasons for why governments, even when they are run by self-interested politicians, may be able to commit to lower powered incentives than firms, because government operation makes yardstick comparisons, which increase the power of incentives, more difficult.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 9802.

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Date of creation: Jun 2003
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9802

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Daron Acemoglu & Michael Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2006. "Markets Versus Governments: Political Economy of Mechanisms," NBER Working Papers 12224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Luciano Greco, 2005. "The Optimal Design of Funded Pension Plans: Unbundling Financing and Investment," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0003, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno". [Downloadable!]
  3. Andersson, Fredrik, 2004. "A Trickle-Down Theory of Incentives with Applications to Privatization and Outsourcing," Working Papers 2004:13, Lund University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Oriol Carbonell-Nicolau & Diego Comin, 2005. "Testing Out Contractual Incompleteness: Evidence from Soccer," Departmental Working Papers 200501, Rutgers University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Robert A. J. Dur & Amihai Glazer, 2004. "Optimal Incentive Contracts For a Worker Who Envies His Boss," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  6. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
  7. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Alexander K. Koch & Eloïc Peyrache, 2008. "Aligning Ambition and Incentives," Economics Working Papers 2008-16, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Alexander K. Koch & Eloïc Peyrache, 2005. "Tournaments, Individualized Contracts and Career Concerns," IZA Discussion Papers 1841, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  10. Philippe Aghion & Mathias Dewatripont & Jeremy C. Stein, 2005. "Academic Freedom, Private-Sector Focus, and the Process of Innovation," NBER Working Papers 11542, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Nicola Lacetera, 2003. "Incentives and spillovers in R&D activities: an agency-theoretic analysis of industry-university relations," Microeconomics 0312004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  12. Robert Dur & Amihai Glazer, 2004. "Optimal Incentive Contracts when Workers envy their Boss," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-046/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 13 Jun 2006. [Downloadable!]
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