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Relational Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement

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  • Chi, Chang Koo

    (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics)

  • Olsen, Trond E.

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

Abstract

This paper analyzes relational contracts under moral hazard. We first show that if the available information (signal) about effort satisfies a generalized monotone likelihood ratio property, then irrespective of whether the first-order approach (FOA) is valid or not, the optimal bonus scheme takes a simple form. The scheme rewards the agent a fixed bonus if his performance index exceeds a threshold, like the FOA contract of Levin (2003), but the threshold can be set differently. We next derive a sufficient and necessary condition for non-verifiable information to improve a relational contract. Our new informativeness criterion sheds light on the nature of an ideal performance measure in relational contracting.

Suggested Citation

  • Chi, Chang Koo & Olsen, Trond E., 2018. "Relational Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement," Discussion Papers 2018/6, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2018_006
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    Cited by:

    1. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2023. "Balanced Scorecards: A Relational Contract Approach," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 619-652, May.
    2. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2019. "Relational Contracts, Multiple Agents, and Correlated Outputs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5360-5370, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Relational contracts; non-verifiable performance measures; first-order approach; bonus scheme; informativeness criterions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D00 - Microeconomics - - General - - - General
    • D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law

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