IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v90y2022i4p1583-1613.html

Robust Incentives for Teams

Author

Listed:
  • Tianjiao Dai
  • Juuso Toikka

Abstract

We show that demanding team incentives to be robust to nonquantifiable uncertainty about the game played by the agents leads to contracts that align the agents' interests. Such contracts have a natural interpretation as team‐based compensation. Under budget balance they reduce to linear contracts, thus identifying profit‐sharing, or equity, as an optimal contract absent a sink or a source of funds. A linear contract also gives the best profit guarantee to an outside residual claimant. These contracts still suffer from the free‐rider problem, but a positive guarantee obtains if and only if the technology known to the contract designer is sufficiently productive.

Suggested Citation

  • Tianjiao Dai & Juuso Toikka, 2022. "Robust Incentives for Teams," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1583-1613, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:90:y:2022:i:4:p:1583-1613
    DOI: 10.3982/ECTA16280
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA16280
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3982/ECTA16280?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Levin & Steven Tadelis, 2005. "Profit Sharing and the Role of Professional Partnerships," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 131-171.
    2. Gabriel Carroll, 2017. "Robustness and Separation in Multidimensional Screening," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 453-488, March.
    3. Abreu, Dilip & Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1992. "A Response [Virtual Implementation in Iteratively Undominated Strategies I: Complete Information]," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1439-1442, November.
    4. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    5. Leonid Hurwicz & Leonard Shapiro, 1978. "Incentive Structures Maximizing Residual Gain under Incomplete Information," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(1), pages 180-191, Spring.
    6. Takuro Yamashita, 2015. "Implementation in Weakly Undominated Strategies: Optimality of Second-Price Auction and Posted-Price Mechanism," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(3), pages 1223-1246.
    7. Abreu, Dilip & Matsushima, Hitoshi, 1992. "Virtual Implementation in Iteratively Undominated Strategies: Complete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 993-1008, September.
    8. Yeon-Koo Che & Seung-Weon Yoo, 2001. "Optimal Incentives for Teams," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 525-541, June.
    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. Keler Marku & Sergio Ocampo & Jean‐Baptiste Tondji, 2024. "Robust contracts in common agency," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 55(2), pages 199-229, June.
    2. Burkett, Justin & Rosenthal, Maxwell, 2024. "Data-driven contract design," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    3. Weinschenk, Philipp, 2024. "Incentives and performance under two-dimensional moral hazard," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 107-115.
    4. Rosenthal, Maxwell, 2023. "Robust incentives for risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. Bo Peng & Zhihao Gavin Tang, 2024. "Optimal Robust Contract Design," Papers 2406.11528, arXiv.org.
    6. Th'eo Durandard & Udayan Vaidya & Boli Xu, 2025. "Robust Contracting for Sequential Search," Papers 2504.17948, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    7. Burkett, Justin & Rosenthal, Maxwell, 2024. "Statistical uncertainty and coarse contracts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    8. Niu, Yingjie & Zou, Zhentao, 2024. "Robust dynamic contracts with multiple agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 196-217.
    9. Rosenthal, Maxwell, 0. "Simple incentives and diverse beliefs," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society.
    10. Paul Duetting & Michal Feldman & Yarden Rashti, 2025. "Succinct Ambiguous Contracts," Papers 2503.02592, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    11. Heijmans, Roweno J.R.K., 2023. "Unraveling Coordination Problems," Discussion Papers 2023/20, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.

    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. Mukherjee, Saptarshi & Muto, Nozomu & Sen, Arunava, 2024. "Implementation in undominated strategies with applications to auction design, public good provision and matching," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    2. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    3. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2019. "Implementation without expected utility: ex-post verifiability," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(4), pages 575-585, December.
    4. Hitoshi Matsushima & Shunya Noda, 2020. "Mechanism Design with Blockchain Enforcement," DSSR Discussion Papers 111, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University.
    5. Heijmans, Roweno J.R.K. & Suetens, Sigrid, 2025. "Comparing Subsidies to Solve Coordination Failure," Discussion Papers 2025/9, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    6. Giovanni Ponti, 2000. "Splitting The Baby In Two: How To Solve Solomon'S Dilemma When Agents Are Boundedly Rational," Working Papers. Serie AD 2000-08, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. Maskin, Eric & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2002. "Implementation theory," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare,in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, pages 237-288 Elsevier.
    8. Kunimoto, Takashi & Serrano, Roberto, 2011. "A new necessary condition for implementation in iteratively undominated strategies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2583-2595.
    9. Gürtler, Oliver, 2005. "On Delegation under Relational Contracts," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 32/2005, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    10. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2007. "Behavioral Aspects of Implementation Theory ( The further revision was subsequently published in "Economics Letters". )," CARF F-Series CARF-F-112, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    11. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2012. "Finitely Repeated Prisoners' Dilemma With Small Fines: The Penance Contract," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 333-347, September.
    12. Chen, Yi-Chun & Sun, Yifei, 2015. "Full implementation in backward induction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 71-76.
    13. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2013. "Process manipulation in unique implementation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 41(4), pages 883-893, October.
    14. Hitoshi Matsushima, 2025. "Honesty and epistemological implementation of social choice functions with asymmetric information," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 65(4), pages 1017-1038, December.
    15. Cabrales, Antonio, 1999. "Adaptive Dynamics and the Implementation Problem with Complete Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 159-184, June.
    16. Balafoutas, Loukas & Kocher, Martin G. & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2013. "Equality, equity and incentives: An experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 32-51.
    17. Dagan, Nir & Serrano, Roberto, 1998. "Invariance and randomness in the Nash program for coalitional games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 43-49, January.
    18. Clark, Kenneth & Sefton, Martin, 2001. "Repetition and signalling: experimental evidence from games with efficient equilibria," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 357-362, March.
    19. Matsushima, Hitoshi, 2008. "Role of honesty in full implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 353-359, March.
    20. Hayashi, Takashi & Lombardi, Michele, 2019. "Constrained implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 546-567.

    More about this item

    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:wly:emetrp:v:90:y:2022:i:4:p:1583-1613. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.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.