Contract Choice: Efficiency and Fairness in Revenue-Sharing Contracts

We present a simple principal-agent experiment in which the principals are allowed to choose between a revenue-sharing, a bonus, and a trust contract, to offer to an agent. Our findings suggest that a large majority of experimental subjects choose the revenue-sharing contract. This choice turns out...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Link(s) zu Dokument(en):IHS Publikation
Hauptverfasser: Karakostas, Alexandros, Sonntag, Axel, Zizzo, Daniel John
Format: Article in Academic Journal PeerReviewed
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Wiley 2017
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:We present a simple principal-agent experiment in which the principals are allowed to choose between a revenue-sharing, a bonus, and a trust contract, to offer to an agent. Our findings suggest that a large majority of experimental subjects choose the revenue-sharing contract. This choice turns out to be not only the most efficient but also, at the same time, fair. Overall, the distribution of earnings is only mildly skewed towards the principal. We conclude that, under revenue-sharing contracts, concerns for fairness can be closely associated with the use of monetary incentives. (Author's abstract)