This paper proposes a transactions cost theory of total factor productivity. In a world with asymmetric information and transactions costs, effort, and thus productivity, must be induced by incentive schemes. Labor contracts trade off the marginal benefits and the marginal costs of effort. The...

We analyze an environment plagued by double moral hazard where the worker's effort level and the employer's monitoring level are not contractible. In such an environment, the employer tends to over-monitor thereby inducing low effort. To ease the latter problem, the employer may choose to...