IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/eaae05/24645.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Dubois, Pierre & Vukina, Tomislav, 2005. "Optimal Incentives Under Moral Hazard and Heterogeneous Agents: Evidence from Production Contracts Data," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24645, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:eaae05:24645
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.24645
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/24645/files/cp05du01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.24645?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre Dubois & Tomislav Vukina, 2004. "Grower Risk Aversion and the Cost of Moral Hazard in Livestock Production Contracts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(3), pages 835-841.
    2. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Durand, Franck & Geoffard, Pierre-Yves, 1998. "Moral hazard and the demand for physician services: First lessons from a French natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 499-511, May.
    3. Paarsch, Harry J & Shearer, Bruce, 2000. "Piece Rates, Fixed Wages, and Incentive Effects: Statistical Evidence from Payroll Records," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 59-92, February.
    4. Dubois, Pierre, 2002. "Moral hazard, land fertility and sharecropping in a rural area of the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 35-64, June.
    5. Joost M. E. Pennings & Brian Wansink, 2004. "Channel Contract Behavior: The Role of Risk Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, And Channel Members' Market Structures," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 697-724, October.
    6. Armando Levy & Tomislav Vukina, 2002. "Optimal linear contracts with heterogeneous agents," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 29(2), pages 205-217, June.
    7. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Maristella Botticini, 2002. "Endogenous Matching and the Empirical Determinants of Contract Form," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 564-591, June.
    8. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    9. Jaap H. Abbring & Pierre-André Chiappori & Jean Pinquet, 2003. "Moral Hazard and Dynamic Insurance Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 767-820, June.
    10. Harry J. Paarsch & Bruce Shearer, 2004. "Male-Female Productivity Differentials: The Role of Ability and Incentives," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-17, CIRANO.
    11. Joost M.E. Pennings & Ale Smidts, 2000. "Assessing the Construct Validity of Risk Attitude," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(10), pages 1337-1348, October.
    12. Pannenberg, Markus, 2007. "Risk Aversion and Reservation Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 2806, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818728, September.
    14. Mathias Dewatripont & Lars Peter Hansen & Stephen Turnovsky, 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications, Eighth World Congress," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/176002, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    15. Cox, James C & Oaxaca, Ronald L, 1992. "Direct Tests of the Reservation Wage Property," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(415), pages 1423-1432, November.
    16. Jaap H. Abbring & James J. Heckman & Pierre-André Chiappori & Jean Pinquet, 2003. "Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard In Insurance: Can Dynamic Data Help to Distinguish?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 512-521, 04/05.
    17. Martin, Laura L., 1997. "Production Contracts, Risk Shifting, and Relative Performance Payments in the Pork Industry," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 267-278, December.
    18. Christopher Ferrall & Bruce Shearer, 1999. "Incentives and Transactions Costs Within the Firm: Estimating an Agency Model Using Payroll Records," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(2), pages 309-338.
    19. Canice Prendergast, 2002. "The Tenuous Trade-off between Risk and Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1071-1102, October.
    20. Porametr Leegomonchai & Tomislav Vukina, 2005. "Dynamic Incentives and Agent Discrimination in Broiler Production Tournaments," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(4), pages 849-877, December.
    21. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524131, September.
    22. Paarsch, Harry J. & Shearer, Bruce S., 2007. "Do women react differently to incentives? Evidence from experimental data and payroll records," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1682-1707, October.
    23. Bruce Shearer, 2004. "Piece Rates, Fixed Wages and Incentives: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(2), pages 513-534.
    24. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818735, September.
    25. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524124, September.
    26. Armando Levy & Tomislav Vukina, 2004. "The League Composition Effect in Tournaments with Heterogeneous Players: An Empirical Analysis of Broiler Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 353-378, April.
    27. Bernard Salanié, 2003. "Testing Contract Theory," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 49(3), pages 461-477.
    28. Mathias Dewatripont & Lars Peter Hansen & Stephen Turnovsky, 2003. "Advances in economics and econometrics :theory and applications," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/9557, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    29. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818742, September.
    30. Martin, Laura L., 1997. "Production Contracts, Risk Shifting, And Relative Performance Payments In The Pork Industry," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 29(2), pages 1-12, December.
    31. Allen, Douglas & Lueck, Dean, 1992. "Contract Choice in Modern Agriculture: Cash Rent versus Cropshare," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 397-426, October.
    32. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524117, September.
    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. 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. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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).
    6. 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.
    7. 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.

    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. Simon Burgess & Marisa Ratto, 2003. "The Role of Incentives in the Public Sector: Issues and Evidence," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/071, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. Sebastian Galiani & Juan Pantano, 2021. "Structural Models: Inception and Frontier," NBER Working Papers 28698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Courty, Pascal & Marschke, Gerald, 2008. "On the Sorting of Physicians across Medical Occupations," IZA Discussion Papers 3862, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Oriana Bandiera, 1999. "On the Structure of Tenancy contracts: Theory and Evidence fron 19th Century Rural Sicily," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 19, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    5. Fortin, Bernard & Jacquemet, Nicolas & Shearer, Bruce, 2010. "Labour Supply, Work Effort and Contract Choice: Theory and Evidence on Physicians," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2010-30, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 21 Oct 2010.
    6. Eberhard Feess & Bernd Frick & Gerd Muehlheusser, 2004. "Legal Restrictions on Buyout Fees: Theory and Evidence from German Soccer," Diskussionsschriften dp0411, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    7. Xavier Gine & Jessica Goldberg & Dean Yang, 2012. "Credit Market Consequences of Improved Personal Identification: Field Experimental Evidence from Malawi," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2923-2954, October.
    8. Hilt, Eric, 2008. "The negative trade-off between risk and incentives: Evidence from the american whaling industry," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 424-444, September.
    9. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Jonathan Levin, 2010. "Beyond Testing: Empirical Models of Insurance Markets," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 311-336, September.
    10. Mkhabela, Thulasizwe, 2018. "Dual Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in South African Agribusiness: It Takes Two to Tango," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 21(3), February.
    11. Christian Hellwig, 2004. "Heterogeneous Information and the Benefits of Public Information Disclosures (October 2005)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 283, UCLA Department of Economics.
    12. Christoph Breunig, 2019. "Goodness-of-Fit Tests based on Series Estimators in Nonparametric Instrumental Regression," Papers 1909.10133, arXiv.org.
    13. Buccirossi, Paolo & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2006. "Leniency policies and illegal transactions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1281-1297, August.
    14. Yoo, Seung Han, 2014. "Learning a population distribution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 188-201.
    15. Cabrales, Antonio & Charness, Gary & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2006. "Competition, hidden information, and efficiency : an experiment," UC3M Working papers. Economics we071909, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    16. Chassang, Sylvain, 2008. "Uniform selection in global games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 222-241, March.
    17. Ying Fan & Kai-Uwe Kühn & Francine Lafontaine, 2017. "Financial Constraints and Moral Hazard: The Case of Franchising," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 2082-2125.
    18. Kasahara, Tetsuya, 2009. "Coordination failure among multiple lenders and the role and effects of public policy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 183-198, June.
    19. Stolpe, Michael, 2004. "Europe's entry into the venture capital business: efficiency and policy," Kiel Working Papers 1223, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Stephen Morris & Ming Yang, 2016. "Coordination and the Relative Cost of Distinguishing Nearby States," Working Papers 079_2016, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Econometric Research Program..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Livestock Production/Industries; Production Economics;

    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

    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:ags:eaae05:24645. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaaeeea.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.