Scandinavian Working Papers in Business Administration

Discussion Papers,
Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science

No 2018/6: Relational Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement

Chang Koo Chi () and Trond E. Olsen ()
Additional contact information
Chang Koo Chi: Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics, Postal: NHH , Department of Economics, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway
Trond E. Olsen: Dept. of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics, Postal: NHH , Department of Business and Management Science, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway

Abstract: This paper analyzes relational contracts under moral hazard. We first show that if the available information (signal) about effort satisfies a generalized monotone likelihood ratio property, then irrespective of whether the first-order approach (FOA) is valid or not, the optimal bonus scheme takes a simple form. The scheme rewards the agent a fixed bonus if his performance index exceeds a threshold, like the FOA contract of Levin (2003), but the threshold can be set differently. We next derive a sufficient and necessary condition for non-verifiable information to improve a relational contract. Our new informativeness criterion sheds light on the nature of an ideal performance measure in relational contracting.

Keywords: Relational contracts; non-verifiable performance measures; first-order approach; bonus scheme; informativeness criterions

JEL-codes: D00; D20; D21; D80; D86

34 pages, April 30, 2018

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