Heterogeneity in Organizational Form: Why Otherwise Identical Firms Choose Different Incentives for Their Managers

Product-market competition affects the benefits from providing incentives to managers. In particular, the best response to other firms providing strong incentives can be to provide weak incentives. Conversely, the best response to other firms providing weak incentives can be to provide strong incentives. In equilibrium only a fraction of the firms may, therefore, provide strong incentives. Moreover, all equilibria may exhibit heterogeneity in incentives due to the nonconvexities inherent in the underlying agency problem between firms and their managers. This article also investigates how increased competition affects the strength of the incentives provided in the equilibrium.