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Relational Incentive Contracts with Persistent Private Information

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  • James Malcomson

Abstract

This paper investigates relational incentive contracts with continuous, privately-observed agent types that are persistent over time. With fixed agent types, full separation is not possible when continuation equilibrium payoffs following revelation are on the Pareto frontier of attainable payoffs. This result is related to the ratchet effect in that: (1) a type imitating a less productive type receives an information rent and (2) with full separation, one imitating a more productive type receives the same future payoff as that more productive type. However, the reason for (2) is fundamentally different than with the ratchet effect. It arises from the dynamic enforcement requirement in relational contracts, not from the principal having all the bargaining power, and applies whatever the distribution between principal and agent of the future gains from the relationship (that is, whatever the point on the Pareto frontier). This result extends to sufficiently persistent types under certain conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • James Malcomson, 2015. "Relational Incentive Contracts with Persistent Private Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 5462, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5462
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    Cited by:

    1. David Martimort & Aggey Semenov & Lars Stole, 2017. "A Theory of Contracts with Limited Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 816-852.
    2. Lang, Matthias, 2019. "Communicating subjective evaluations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 163-199.
    3. Matthias Fahn & Nicolas Klein, 2019. "Relational Contracts with Private Information on the Future Value of the Relationship: The Upside of Implicit Downsizing Costs," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 33-58, November.
    4. Bhaskar, V. & Mailath, George J., 2019. "The curse of long horizons," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-89.
    5. Bergman, Mats A. & Johansson, Per & Lundberg, Sofia & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2016. "Privatization and quality: Evidence from elderly care in Sweden," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 109-119.
    6. Li, Jin & Mukherjee, Arijit & Vasconcelos, Luis, 2019. "Managing performance evaluation systems: Relational incentives in the presence of learning-by-shirking," Working Papers 2018-12, Michigan State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Sandip Mitra & Dilip Mookherjee & Maximo Torero & Sujata Visaria, 2018. "Asymmetric Information and Middleman Margins: An Experiment with Indian Potato Farmers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-13, March.
    8. Johannes Abeler & David Huffman & Collin Raymond & David B. Huffman, 2023. "Incentive Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Effort Provision," CESifo Working Paper Series 10541, CESifo.
    9. Jean‐Marc Bourgeon & Pierre Picard, 2020. "Insurance law and incomplete contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(4), pages 1253-1286, December.
    10. W. Bentley MacLeod & James M. Malcomson, 2023. "Implicit Contracts, Incentive Compatibility, and Involuntary Unemployment: Thirty Years On," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 179(3-4), pages 470-499.
    11. Deb, Rahul & Mitchell, Matthew & Pai, Mallesh M., 2022. "(Bad) reputation in relational contracting," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(2), May.
    12. Macchiavello, Rocco & Morjaria, Ameet, 2022. "Empirical approaches to trust and relational contracts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    13. Schmutzler, Armin & Holger, Herz & André, Volk, 2014. "Honesty and Relational Contracts," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100363, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Davies, Elwyn & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2021. "When no bad deed goes punished: Relational contracting in Ghana and the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 714-737.
    15. Abeler, Johannes & Huffman, David B. & Raymond, Collin, 2023. "Incentive Complexity, Bounded Rationality and Effort Provision," IZA Discussion Papers 16284, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Herz, Holger & Schmutzler, Armin & Volk, André, 2019. "Cooperation and mistrust in relational contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 366-380.
    17. Hua, Xiameng & Watson, Joel, 2022. "Starting small in project choice: A discrete-time setting with a continuum of types," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    18. Zhuo Wenjun, 2023. "Circulation Expectations, Farmer Trust, and Farmers’ Contract Choice Behavior," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-15, August.
    19. Daniel Barron & Jin Li & Michał Zator, 2022. "Morale and Debt Dynamics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4496-4516, June.
    20. De Chiara, Alessandro, 2020. "Precontractual investment and modes of procurement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    21. Joel Watson, 2021. "Theoretical Foundations of Relational Incentive Contracts," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 631-659, August.
    22. Rodrigo Carril & Andres Gonzalez-Lira & Michael S. Walker, 2022. "Competition under incomplete contracts and the design of procurement policies," Economics Working Papers 1824, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    23. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Maestri, Lucas, 2019. "Reputation and screening in a noisy environment with irreversible actions," MPRA Paper 100885, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    24. Fahn, Matthias & Klein, Nicolas, 2018. "Relational Contracts with Private Information On the Future Value of the Relationship," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 106, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    25. Can Urgun, 2021. "Restless Contracting," Working Papers 2021-88, Princeton University. Economics Department..

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    relational incentive contracts; private information; ratchet effect; dynamic enforcement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

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