IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urnsici0932-4569(201006)1662_299esrip_2.0.tx_2-o.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equal Sharing Rules in Partnerships

Author

Listed:
  • Björn Bartling
  • Ferdinand A. von Siemens

Abstract

Partnerships are the prevalent organizational form in many industries. Profits are most frequently shared equally among the partners. The purpose of our paper is to provide a rationale for equal sharing rules. We show that with inequity-averse partners the equal sharing rule is the unique sharing rule that maximizes the partners' incentives to exert effort. We further show that inequity aversion can enhance efficiency in partnerships of given size, but that it can also cause partnerships to be inefficiently small.

Suggested Citation

  • Björn Bartling & Ferdinand A. von Siemens, 2010. "Equal Sharing Rules in Partnerships," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 166(2), pages 299-320, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201006)166:2_299:esrip_2.0.tx_2-o
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mohr/jite/2010/00000166/00000002/art00006
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.

    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. Pedro Rey-Biel, 2008. "Inequity Aversion and Team Incentives," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 297-320, June.
    2. Hideshi Itoh, 2004. "Moral Hazard and Other-Regarding Preferences," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 18-45.
    3. Encinosa III, William E. & Gaynor, Martin & Rebitzer, James B., 2007. "The sociology of groups and the economics of incentives: Theory and evidence on compensation systems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 187-214, February.
    4. Arup Bose & Debashis Pal & David E. M. Sappington, 2010. "Equal Pay for Unequal Work: Limiting Sabotage in Teams," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 25-53, March.
    5. Jonathan Levin & Steven Tadelis, 2005. "Profit Sharing and the Role of Professional Partnerships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 120(1), pages 131-171.
    6. Miller, Nolan H., 1997. "Efficiency in Partnerships with Joint Monitoring," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 285-299, December.
    7. William S. Neilson & Jill Stowe, 2010. "Piece-Rate Contracts For Other-Regarding Workers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(3), pages 575-586, July.
    8. Florian Englmaier & Achim Wambach, 2002. "Contracts and Inequity Aversion," CESifo Working Paper Series 809, CESifo Group Munich.
    9. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    10. Joseph Farrell & Suzanne Scotchmer, 1988. "Partnerships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 103(2), pages 279-297.
    11. Frank, Robert H, 1984. "Are Workers Paid Their Marginal Products?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 549-571, September.
    12. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-817, August.
    13. Dominique Demougin & Claude Fluet, 2003. "Group vs. Individual Performance Pay When Workers Are Envious," CIRANO Working Papers 2003s-10, CIRANO.
    14. Amihai Glazer, 2008. "Optimal Contracts When a Worker Envies His Boss," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 120-137, May.
    15. Dominique Demougin & Claude Fluet & Carsten Helm, 2006. "Output and wages with inequality averse agents," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(2), pages 399-413, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • J54 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Producer Cooperatives; Labor Managed Firms

    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:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201006)166:2_299:esrip_2.0.tx_2-o. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Thomas Wolpert) The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Thomas Wolpert to update the entry or send us the correct email address. General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.