When a key responsibility of a manager is to allocate more or less attractive tasks to subordinates, these subordinates have an incentive to work hard and demonstrate their talents. As a new manager is less well acquainted with these talents this incentive mechanism is reinvigorated after a...

A real effort experiment is investigated in which supervisors have to rate the performance of individual workers who in turn receive a bonus payment based on these ratings. We compare a baseline treatment in which supervisors were not restricted in their rating behavior to a forced distribution...

We examine the question whether a decision should be delegated to a subordinate and whether this is done efficiently. We illustrate in a dynamic principal-agent model that delegation is useful for several reasons. First, it serves to test agents with unknown ability. Then, it may improve an...

In this paper we discuss the role of private information in buyer - seller relationships. We distinguish between pre- and postcontractual asymmetric information. In each case, we discuss the role of the bargaining protocol and we explore whether it is possible to achieve the first-best outcome.

Die Rolle von privater Information in der Kontraktheorie wird anhand einfacher Tauschmodelle beleuchtet. Es wird zwischen den Konsequenzen von asymmetrischer Information vor und nach Vertragsabschluß unterschieden und jeweils der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit der Verhandlungsprozeß von...

An explanation for motivation crowding-out phenomena is developed in a social preferences framework. Besides selfish and fair or altruistic types, a third type of agent is introduced. These "conformists" have social preferences if they believe that sufficiently many of the others do as well....

An explanation for motivation crowding-out phenomena is developed in a social preferences framework. Besides selfish and fair or altruistic types a third type of agents is introduced: These ‘conformists' have social preferences if they believe that sufficiently many of the others do too. When...

A simple principal agent problem is experimentally investigated in which a principal repeatedly sets a wage and an agent responds by choosing an effort level. The principal's payoff is determined by the agent's effort. In a first setting the principal can only set a fixed wage in each period. In...

We provide an explanation for peer pressure in teams based on inequity aversion. Analyzing a two-period model with two agents, we find that the effect of inequity aversion strongly depends on the information structure. When contributions are unobservable, agents act as if they were purely...

We derive a natural definition of responsibility in a formal model in which employees care for their career prospects: A superior holds a subordinate responsible for a task when she announces her belief that this subordinate contributes most to this task</EM>. We show that those announced beliefs...