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Team Incentives in Relational Employment Contracts

Author

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  • Kvaløy, Ola

    (Norsk hotellhøgskole, Institutt for økonomi og ledelse, University of Stavanger)

  • Olsen, Trond E.

    (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

Abstract

The paper analyzes conditions for implementing incentive schemes based on, respectively joint, relative and independent performance, in a relational contract between a principal and a team of two agents. A main result is that the optimal incentive regime depends on the productivity of the agents, or more precisely on the returns from high effort. This occurs because agents’ productivities affect the principal’s temptation to renege on the relational contract. The analysis suggests that we will see a higher frequency of relative performance evaluation (RPE) - and schemes that lie close to independent performance evaluation - as we move from low-productive to high-productive environments. In particular, it is shown that if effort-productivity is sufficiently high, the optimal scheme for the principal is (for a range of discount factors) a collusion-proof RPE scheme, even if there is no common shock that affects the agents’ output.

Suggested Citation

  • Kvaløy, Ola & Olsen, Trond E., 2005. "Team Incentives in Relational Employment Contracts," Discussion Papers 2005/7, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2005_007
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/163570
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Incentive schemes; joint performance; relative and independent performance; relational contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

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