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Inducing Leaders to Take Risky Decisions: Dismissal, Tenure, and Term Limits

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  • Philippe Aghion
  • Matthew Jackson

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the problem of whether and/or when to replace a leader (agent) when no monetary rewards are available, and it is the leader's competence rather than effort that is being evaluated. The only decisions that the leader takes over time are whether to undertake risky but potentially high payoff projects, the choice of which can reveal the leader's competency. If the value of foregone projects are observed, then the probability that a leader is replaced is bell-shaped and saw-toothed over time. If the value of foregone projects are not observed, and the leader's competency is only indirectly inferrable through the success or failure of projects that the leader undertakes, then the incentives of the leader depend on the replacement strategy. If the principal can commit to a replacement strategy in advance, then we show that (approximately) optimal mechanisms either involve a probationary period and then indefinite tenure, or else a random dismissal strategy. If instead commitment is impossible, and for instance voters regularly choose whether to replace the leader, then there are poor incentives and inefficiently low payoffs, even below that of simply replacing the leader in every period. Incentives can be improved via term limits.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Aghion & Matthew Jackson, 2014. "Inducing Leaders to Take Risky Decisions: Dismissal, Tenure, and Term Limits," NBER Working Papers 20301, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20301
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    Cited by:

    1. Marina Halac & Ilan Kremer, 2020. "Experimenting with Career Concerns," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 260-288, February.
    2. Scott C. Ganz, 2020. "Hyperopic Search: Organizations Learning About Managers Learning About Strategies," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 821-838, July.
    3. Mehmet Ekmekci & Leandro Gorno & Lucas Maestri & Jian Sun & Dong Wei, 2022. "Learning from Manipulable Signals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3995-4040, December.
    4. Benjamin Davies, 2022. "Why do experts give simple advice?," Papers 2209.11710, arXiv.org.
    5. Rahul Deb & Mallesh M. Pai & Maher Said, 2018. "Evaluating Strategic Forecasters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(10), pages 3057-3103, October.
    6. Fausto Panunzi & Nicola Pavoni & Guido Tabellini, 2020. "Economic Shocks and Populism: The Political Implications of Reference-Dependent Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 8539, CESifo.
    7. Timothy Perri, 2018. "Economics of evaluation (with special reference to promotion and tenure committees)," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, February.
    8. Deb, Rahul & Mitchell, Matthew & Pai, Mallesh M., 2022. "(Bad) reputation in relational contracting," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(2), May.
    9. Schottmüller, Christoph, 2019. "Too good to be truthful: Why competent advisers are fired," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 333-360.
    10. Rahul Deb & Matthew Mitchell & Mallesh Pai, 2019. "Our distrust is very expensive," Working Papers tecipa-632, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    11. Volker Laux, 2017. "Supporting and Assessing Agents," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 995-1016, September.
    12. Raphael Boleslavsky, 2023. "Waiting for Fake News," Papers 2304.04053, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    13. Pavesi, Filippo & Scotti, Massimo, 2022. "Good lies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
      • Filippo Pavesi & Massimo Scotti, 2019. "Good Lies," Working Paper Series 39, Economics Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    14. Rohan DUTTA & Pierre-Yves YANNI, 2017. "On Inducing Agents with Term Limits to Take Appropriate Risk," Cahiers de recherche 06-2017, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    15. Yamasaki, Junichi, 2020. "Time horizon of government and public goods investment: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Kim, Doyoung, 2017. "Motivating for new changes when agents have reputation concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 37-53.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation

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