In dynamic principal-agent relationships, it is sometimes observed that the agent's reward depends only on the final outcome. For example, a student's grade in a course quite often depends only on the final exam score, where the performance in the problem sets and the mid-term exam is ignored....

We analyze a dynamic principal-agent problem in which the agent's effort in each period has strong persistent effects. We show that a simple contract, where the reward depends only on the final outcome, is explained as the optimal contract derived in the principal's optimization problem. The...