IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/queddp/275165.html

The Structure of Multi-Period Employment Contracts with Incomplete Insurance Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Arnott, Richard

Abstract

This paper examines the structure of multi-period employment contracts in an economy with identical workers when only incomplete insurance is provided against job-related contingencies. The incompleteness of insurance markets stems from an asymmetry of information between the worker and the insurer. In this situation, the employment contract will provide implicit insurance by paying workers less than their marginal product during some periods and more during others. The paper explores how the characteristics of such contracts are altered by increases in uncertainty, worker risk aversion, hiring costs, and the amount of specific and general training provided. A sequel to this paper examines the efficiency properties of such contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnott, Richard, 1980. "The Structure of Multi-Period Employment Contracts with Incomplete Insurance Markets," Queen's Institute for Economic Research Discussion Papers 275165, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:queddp:275165
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.275165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/275165/files/QUEENS-IER-PAPER-395.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.275165?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. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    2. Ross, Stephen A, 1973. "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 134-139, May.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1962. "Investment in Human Capital: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Investment in Human Beings, pages 9-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Parsons, Donald O, 1972. "Specific Human Capital: An Application to Quit Rates and Layoff Rates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1120-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    5. Diamond, Peter A. & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1974. "Increases in risk and in risk aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 337-360, July.
    6. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    7. Richard Arnott, 1978. "The Control of Labor Turnover with Incomplete Insurance Markets: The One-Group Case," Working Paper 292, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    8. David Donaldson & B. Curtis Eaton, 1976. "Firm-Specific Human Capital: A Shared Investment or Optimal Entrapment?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 9(3), pages 462-472, August.
    9. Spence, Michael & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1971. "Insurance, Information, and Individual Action," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 380-387, May.
    10. Mark V. Pauly, 1974. "Overinsurance and Public Provision of Insurance: The Roles of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 88(1), pages 44-62.
    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. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lam, Kit-Chun & Liu, Pak-Wai & Wong, Yue-Chim, 1995. "Wage structure when wage offers are private," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 19-32, March.

    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. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Georges Dionne & Scott Harrington, 2017. "Insurance and Insurance Markets," Working Papers 17-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    3. Henri Loubergé, 1998. "Risk and Insurance Economics 25 Years After," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 23(4), pages 540-567, October.
    4. Daniel L. McFadden & Carlos E. Noton & Pau Olivella, 2012. "Remedies for Sick Insurance," NBER Working Papers 17938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. repec:bge:wpaper:620 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Cutler, David M. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2000. "The anatomy of health insurance," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 563-643, Elsevier.
    7. Bernard Paulré, 2001. "Enjeux et dilemmes de l'économie cognitive," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00135486, HAL.
    8. Biener, Christian & Eling, Martin & Landmann, Andreas & Pradhan, Shailee, 2018. "Can group incentives alleviate moral hazard? The role of pro-social preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 230-249.
    9. Nell, Martin, 2001. "Managed Claims: Zur Notwendigkeit einer vertikalen Integration von Versicherungs- und Reparaturleistungen," Working Papers on Risk and Insurance 2, University of Hamburg, Institute for Risk and Insurance.
    10. Débora Allam-Firley & Marc-Hubert Depret & Céline Merlin-Brogniart, 2026. "Digital transformation in non-life insurance: Foundations, challenges and research agenda in the economics of service [La transformation numérique du secteur français de l'assurance non-vie : fondements, défis et perspectives de recherche en écono," Post-Print hal-05551244, HAL.
    11. Edward P. Lazear, 1986. "Incentive Contracts," NBER Working Papers 1917, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Innes, Robert, 1986. "Moral Hazard and the Genesis of Farm Debt," CUDARE Working Papers 198349, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    13. Clifford Afoakwah & Joshua Byrnes & Paul Scuffham & Son Nghiem, 2023. "Testing for selection bias and moral hazard in private health insurance: Evidence from a mixed public‐private health system," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 3-24, January.
    14. Stewart, Jay, 1994. "The Welfare Implications of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection in Competitive Insurance Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 193-208, April.
    15. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1996. "The Principle and Market Failure in Systems Competition," NBER Working Papers 5411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1994. "The Extent and Consequences of Job Turnover," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1994 Micr), pages 177-248.
    17. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Estimating the Employer Switching Costs and Wage Responses of Forward-Looking Engineers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 357-412, April.
    18. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    19. Dionne, G. & Doherty, N., 1991. "Adverse Selection In Insurance Markets: A Selective Survey," Cahiers de recherche 9105, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    20. Hulisi Öğüt & Srinivasan Raghunathan & Nirup Menon, 2011. "Cyber Security Risk Management: Public Policy Implications of Correlated Risk, Imperfect Ability to Prove Loss, and Observability of Self‐Protection," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 497-512, March.
    21. Kelly, Mark, 2017. "Health capital accumulation, health insurance, and aggregate outcomes: A neoclassical approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-22.
    22. Marco Guerrazzi & Pier Giuseppe Giribone, 2022. "The dynamics of working hours and wages under implicit contracts," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(4), pages 1075-1094, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    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:queddp:275165. 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/qedquca.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.