IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v98y2008i4p1619-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

All-or-Nothing Monitoring

Author

Listed:
  • Rui R. Zhao

Abstract

A principal can observe both the output and input of an agent who works at a job involving multiple tasks. We provide a simple theory that explains why it may be optimal for the principal to use only an output-based incentive contract, even though the principal can monitor the agent's actions perfectly in all but one task and knows exactly which action is optimal for each task. (JEL D82, D86, M54)

Suggested Citation

  • Rui R. Zhao, 2008. "All-or-Nothing Monitoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1619-1628, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:98:y:2008:i:4:p:1619-28
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.98.4.1619
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.98.4.1619
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Bo, 2012. "All-or-nothing payments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 133-142.
    2. Guy Kaplanski & Haim Levy, 2012. "Executive Short-Term Incentive, Risk-Taking And Leverage-Neutral Incentive Scheme," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(01), pages 1-45.
    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. Christian Espinosa & Juan Gorigoitía & Carlos Maquieira, 2012. "Nonlinear behaviour of EMBI index:the case of eastern European countries," Working Papers 37, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.
    2. Balmaceda, Felipe, 2016. "Optimal task assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-18.
    3. Gregory Phelan, 2017. "Correlated Default and Financial Intermediation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1253-1284, June.
    4. Felipe Balmaceda, 2012. "On the Optimality of One-size-fits-all Contracts: The Limited Liability Case," Documentos de Trabajo 291, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    5. Ben White & Rohan Sadler, 2012. "Optimal conservation investment for a biodiversity‐rich agricultural landscape," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-21, January.
    6. Gerten, Elisa & Beckmann, Michael & Kräkel, Matthias, 2022. "Information and Communication Technology, Hierarchy, and Job Design," IZA Discussion Papers 15491, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Chen Liang & Yili Hong & Bin Gu, 2017. "Home Bias in Global Employment," Working Papers 17-06, NET Institute.
    8. David, Guy & Saynisch, Philip A. & Smith-McLallen, Aaron, 2018. "The economics of patient-centered care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 60-77.
    9. Chen, Bo, 2012. "All-or-nothing payments," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 133-142.
    10. Dunia López-Pintado & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, 2011. "On the optimal management of teams under budget constraints," Working Papers 11.11, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    11. David Rietzke & Yu Chen, 2020. "Push or pull? Performance‐pay, incentives, and information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(1), pages 301-317, March.
    12. Fich, Eliezer M. & Starks, Laura T. & Yore, Adam S., 2014. "CEO deal-making activities and compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(3), pages 471-492.
    13. Chen Liang & Yili Hong & Bin Gu, 2016. "Effects of IT-enabled Monitoring on Labor Contracting in Online Platforms: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Working Papers 16-01, NET Institute.
    14. Ling‐Chieh Kung & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2014. "Impact of reseller's and sales agent's forecasting accuracy in a multilayer supply chain," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(3), pages 207-222, April.
    15. Bo Chen & Yu Chen & David Rietzke, 2020. "Simple contracts under observable and hidden actions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 1023-1047, June.
    16. Mingfeng Lin & Yong Liu & Siva Viswanathan, 2018. "Effectiveness of Reputation in Contracting for Customized Production: Evidence from Online Labor Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 345-359, January.

    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. David Rietzke & Yu Chen, 2020. "Push or pull? Performance‐pay, incentives, and information," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(1), pages 301-317, March.
    2. Asunur Cezar & Huseyin Cavusoglu & Srinivasan Raghunathan, 2014. "Outsourcing Information Security: Contracting Issues and Security Implications," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 638-657, March.
    3. Gregory Phelan, 2017. "Correlated Default and Financial Intermediation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1253-1284, June.
    4. Zhang, Cheng & Yang, Chunhong & Liu, Cheng, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate risk-taking: Loss aversion or opportunity expectations," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Wang, Cheng, 1997. "Incentives, CEO Compensation, and Shareholder Wealth in a Dynamic Agency Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 72-105, September.
    6. Balmaceda, Felipe, 2016. "Optimal task assignments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-18.
    7. Carli, Francesco & Uras, Burak R., 2017. "Joint-liability with endogenously asymmetric group loan contracts," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 72-90.
    8. Dirk Bergemann & Tan Gan & Yingkai Li, 2023. "Managing Persuasion Robustly: The Optimality of Quota Rules," Papers 2310.10024, arXiv.org.
    9. Bo Chen & Yu Chen & David Rietzke, 2020. "Simple contracts under observable and hidden actions," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(4), pages 1023-1047, June.
    10. Zhou, Bing & Li, Yu-meng & Sun, Fang-cheng & Zhou, Zhong-guo, 2021. "Executive compensation incentives, risk level and corporate innovation," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    11. Bo Chen & Yu Chen & David Rietzke, 2017. "Simple Contracts under Observable and Hidden Actions," Graz Economics Papers 2017-07, University of Graz, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    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:aea:aecrev:v:98:y:2008:i:4:p:1619-28. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.