IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/twi/respas/0043.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentive Compatible Contracts?

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Bruttel
  • Gerald Eisenkopf

Abstract

Property rights theory suggests that vertical integration is a sensible solution to hold-up problems and therefore improves social welfare. Theories of reciprocity, in contrast, suggest that vertical integration can reduce social welfare if it implies an unfair distribution. Translating the hold-up situation into a simple prisoners� dilemma game, we provide experimental evidence for social preferences at the individual level. Some individuals behave conditionally cooperative in the hold-up situation and some do not cooperate when they are offered an incentive compatible but unfair contract. Nevertheless, property rights theory correctly predicts that vertical integration increases aggregate welfare even in the case of unfair outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Bruttel & Gerald Eisenkopf, 2009. "Incentive Compatible Contracts?," TWI Research Paper Series 43, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    • Handle: RePEc:twi:respas:0043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.twi-kreuzlingen.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/twi-rps-043-bruttel-eisenkopf-2009-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    2. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M Schmidt, 2007. "Fairness and Contract Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 121-154, January.
    4. Heski Bar-Isaac, 2007. "Something to prove: reputation in teams," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 495-511, June.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Susanne Kremhelmer & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2008. "Fairness and the Optimal Allocation of Ownership Rights," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1262-1284, August.
    6. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    7. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    8. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    9. Benedikt Herrmann & Henrik Orzen, 2008. "The appearance of homo rivalis: Social preferences and the nature of rent seeking," Discussion Papers 2008-10, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    10. Urs Fischbacher & Simon Gachter, 2010. "Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 541-556, March.
    11. Randolph Sloof & Hessel Oosterbeek & Joep Sonnemans, 2007. "Does Making Specific Investments Unobservable Boost Investment Incentives?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 911-942, December.
    12. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    13. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    14. Jeanette Brosig & Thomas Riechmann & Joachim Weimann, 2007. "Selfish in the end? An investigation of consistency and stability of individual behaviour," FEMM Working Papers 07005, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    15. Simon Gächter & Christian Thöni, 2005. "Social Learning and Voluntary Cooperation Among Like-Minded People," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 303-314, 04/05.
    16. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2004. "Is There a Hold-up Problem?," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 475-494, October.
    17. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    18. Altmann, Steffen & Dohmen, Thomas & Wibral, Matthias, 2008. "Do the reciprocal trust less?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 454-457, June.
    19. Tirole, Jean, 1986. "Procurement and Renegotiation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 235-259, April.
    20. Maija Halonen, 2002. "Reputation And The Allocation Of Ownership," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 539-558, July.
    21. Simon Gaechter & Daniele Nosenzo & Elke Renner & Martin Sefton, 2008. "Who Makes a Good Leader? Social Preferences and Leading-by-Example," Discussion Papers 2008-16, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    22. George Baker & Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 2002. "Relational Contracts and the Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(1), pages 39-84.
    23. Michael Kosfeld & Armin Falk, 2006. "The Hidden Costs of Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1611-1630, December.
    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. Mathias Erlei & Wiebke Roß, 2013. "Bounded Rationality as an Essential Component of the Holdup Problem," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0009, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    2. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Elke Renner & Martin Sefton, 2012. "Who Makes A Good Leader? Cooperativeness, Optimism, And Leading-By-Example," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 953-967, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prisoners� Dilemma; Hold-up Problem; Experiment;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:twi:respas:0043. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Gregor Walter). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/twikrch.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.