IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pit/wpaper/483.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Relational Contracts Survive Stochastic Interruptions? Experimental Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Colin Camerer

    (Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology)

  • Sera Linardi

    (Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh
    Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh)

Abstract

This paper tests the robustness of the "two-tiered market" in which efficient bilateral contracts emerge between firms and workers (Brown, Falk and Fehr, 2004). Our experiment introduces stochastic interruptions in firms' ability to offer contracts. Involuntarily laid off workers are eager to be reemployed; they are not selective about job offers and do not shirk. Firms' preference for these "temp workers" induces all workers to compete harder to enter relational contracts. Wages in low-tier markets rise dramatically, suggesting the stigma of unemployment is removed. The results show that interruptions may shorten relational contracts without harming market efficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin Camerer & Sera Linardi, 2010. "Can Relational Contracts Survive Stochastic Interruptions? Experimental Evidence," Working Paper 483, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Mar 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:pit:wpaper:483
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hss.caltech.edu/SSPapers/sswp1340.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.linardi.gspia.pitt.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/RelationalContracting_CamererLinardi.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Brown & Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr, 2012. "Competition And Relational Contracts: The Role Of Unemployment As A Disciplinary Device," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 887-907, August.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    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. 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.
    2. Nora Vogt, 2015. "Environmental Risk Negatively Impacts Trust and Reciprocity in Conservation Contracts: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(3), pages 417-431, November.
    3. Englmaier, Florian & Segal, Carmit, 2016. "Morale, Relationships, and Wages: An Experimental Study," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145662, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Gerhards, Leonie & Heinz, Matthias, 2017. "In good times and bad – Reciprocal behavior at the workplace in times of economic crises," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 228-239.
    5. Jed DeVaro & Jin-Hyuk Kim & Nick Vikander, 2014. "Pay-for-(Persistent)-Luck: CEO Bonuses Under Relational and Formal Contracting," Discussion Papers 14-13, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.

    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. Sliwka, Dirk & Werner, Peter, 2016. "How Do Agents React to Dynamic Wage Increases? An Experimental Study," IZA Discussion Papers 9855, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Ernst Fehr & Martin Brown & Christian Zehnder, 2009. "On Reputation: A Microfoundation of Contract Enforcement and Price Rigidity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 333-353, March.
    3. Kocher, Martin G. & Luhan, Wolfgang J. & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Testing a forgotten aspect of Akerlof’s gift exchange hypothesis: Relational contracts with individual and uniform wages," Discussion Papers in Economics 12816, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Elwyn Davies & Marcel Fafchamps, 2017. "When No Bad Deed Goes Punished: Relational Contracting in Ghana versus the UK," NBER Working Papers 23123, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Elwyn Davies & Marcel Fafchamps, 2015. "When No Bad Deed Goes Punished: A Relational Contracting Experiment in Ghana," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    7. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 207-231, August.
    8. Gose, Karina & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2014. "Strike, coordination, and dismissal in uniform wage settings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 145-158.
    9. Martin Brown & Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr, 2012. "Competition And Relational Contracts: The Role Of Unemployment As A Disciplinary Device," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 887-907, August.
    10. Buchanan, Joy & Houser, Daniel, 2022. "If wages fell during a recession," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1141-1159.
    11. Edwin Ip & Andreas Leibbrandt & Joseph Vecci, 2018. "How Do Gender Quotas Affect Hierarchical Relationships? Complementary Evidence from a Respresentative Survey and Labor Market Experiments," CESifo Working Paper Series 6915, CESifo.
    12. Werner, Peter & Bolton, Gary & Ockenfels, Axel, 2013. "How managerial wage transparency may reduce shareholder returns Evidence from an experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79766, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. 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.
    14. Edwin Ip & Andreas Leibbrandt & Joseph Vecci, 2020. "How Do Gender Quotas Affect Workplace Relationships? Complementary Evidence from a Representative Survey and Labor Market Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 805-822, February.
    15. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s1), pages 207-231, August.
    16. Charness, Gary & Du, Ninghua & Yang, Chun-Lei & Yao, Lan, 2013. "Promises in contract design," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 194-208.
    17. Schram, Arthur & Brandts, Jordi & Gërxhani, Klarita, 2010. "Information, bilateral negotiations, and worker recruitment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 1035-1058, November.
    18. Gary Bolton & Axel Ockenfels & Peter Werner, 2016. "Leveraging social relationships and transparency in the insider game," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 127-143, November.
    19. Güth, W., 1997. "Boundedly Rational Decision Emergence -A General Perspective and Some Selective Illustrations-," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1997,29, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    20. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Homo Reciprocans: Survey Evidence on Behavioural Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 592-612, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    experiments; labor market; relational contracts; organizational design; layoffs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

    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:pit:wpaper:483. 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: Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/depghus.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.