[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/9559.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Contracting With Synergies

Author

Listed:
  • Goldstein, Itay
  • Edmans, Alex
  • Zhu, John
Abstract
This paper studies multi-agent optimal contracting with cost synergies. We model synergies as the extent to which effort by one agent reduces his colleague's marginal cost of effort. An agent's pay and effort depend on the synergies he exerts, the synergies his colleagues exert on him and, surprisingly, the synergies his colleagues exert on each other. It may be optimal to "over-work" and "over-incentivize" a synergistic agent, due to the spillover effect on his colleagues. This result can rationalize the high pay differential between CEOs and divisional managers. An increase in the synergy between two particular agents can lead to a third agent being endogenously excluded from the team, even if his own synergy is unchanged. This result has implications for optimal team composition and firm boundaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Goldstein, Itay & Edmans, Alex & Zhu, John, 2013. "Contracting With Synergies," CEPR Discussion Papers 9559, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9559
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP9559
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    3. Simon Gervais & Itay Goldstein, 2007. "The Positive Effects of Biased Self-Perceptions in Firms," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 11(3), pages 453-496.
    4. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    5. Itoh, Hideshi, 1991. "Incentives to Help in Multi-agent Situations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 611-636, May.
    6. Marko Tervio, 2008. "The Difference That CEOs Make: An Assignment Model Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 642-668, June.
    7. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2005. "Why do some firms give stock options to all employees?: An empirical examination of alternative theories," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 99-133, April.
    8. Wouter Dessein & Luis Garicano & Robert Gertner, 2010. "Organizing for Synergies," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 77-114, November.
    9. József Sákovics & Jakub Steiner, 2012. "Who Matters in Coordination Problems?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3439-3461, December.
    10. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cremers, K.J. Martijn & Peyer, Urs C., 2011. "The CEO pay slice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 199-221, October.
    11. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    12. Raghuram G. Rajan & Julie Wulf, 2006. "The Flattening Firm: Evidence from Panel Data on the Changing Nature of Corporate Hierarchies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 759-773, November.
    13. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    14. Eyal Winter, 2006. "Optimal incentives for sequential production processes," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 376-390, June.
    15. Jayant R. Kale & Ebru Reis & Anand Venkateswaran, 2009. "Rank‐Order Tournaments and Incentive Alignment: The Effect on Firm Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1479-1512, June.
    16. Ramakrishnan, Ram T S & Thakor, Anjan V, 1991. "Cooperation versus Competition in Agency," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 248-283, Fall.
    17. Viral V. Acharya & Stewart C. Myers & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2011. "The Internal Governance of Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(3), pages 689-720, June.
    18. Bergman, Nittai K. & Jenter, Dirk, 2007. "Employee sentiment and stock option compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 667-712, June.
    19. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    20. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1619-1650 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-817, August.
    22. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    23. Ilya Segal, 1999. "Contracting with Externalities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 337-388.
    24. Eyal Winter, 2006. "Optimal Incentives for Sequential Production Processes," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(2), pages 376-390, Summer.
    25. Shai Bernstein & Eyal Winter, 2012. "Contracting with Heterogeneous Externalities," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 50-76, May.
    26. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2009. "A Multiplicative Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4881-4917, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kelly Huang & Brent Lao & Gregory McPhee, 2020. "Internal information quality and patent‐related innovation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3-4), pages 489-518, March.
    2. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2017. "Within-Firm Pay Inequality," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3605-3635.
    3. Xie, Yimei & Ding, Chuan & Li, Yang & Wang, Kaihong, 2023. "Optimal incentive contract in continuous time with different behavior relationships between agents," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Lukyanov, Georgy & Shamruk, Konstantin & Su, Tong & Wakrim, Ahmed, 2022. "Public communication with externalities," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 177-196.
    5. Nian Yang & Jun Yang & Yu Chen, 2018. "Contracting in a Continuous-Time Model with Three-Sided Moral Hazard and Cost Synergies," Graz Economics Papers 2018-06, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    6. Meng Wei Chen & Yu Chen & Zhen-Hua Wu & Ningru Zhao, 2018. "Government Intervention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship," Graz Economics Papers 2018-15, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    7. Bloomfield, Matthew & Gipper, Brandon & Kepler, John D. & Tsui, David, 2021. "Cost shielding in executive bonus plans," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2).
    8. Guay, Wayne R. & Kepler, John D. & Tsui, David, 2019. "The role of executive cash bonuses in providing individual and team incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 441-471.
    9. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    2. Jenter, Dirk & Cziraki, Peter, 2021. "The Market for CEOs," CEPR Discussion Papers 16281, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    4. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    5. Dinara Alpysbayeva & Jozef Konings & Venkat Subramanian & Aigerim Yergabulova, 2022. "Wage dispersion and firm performance: evidence from Kazakhstan," Working Papers 2022/01, Nazarbayev University, Graduate School of Business.
    6. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    7. Edmans, Alex & Gosling, Tom & Jenter, Dirk, 2023. "CEO compensation: Evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    8. Tat Y. Chan & Jia Li & Lamar Pierce, 2014. "Compensation and Peer Effects in Competing Sales Teams," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 1965-1984, August.
    9. Laurence Ales & Antonio Andres Bellofatto & Jessie Jiaxu Wang, 2017. "Taxing Atlas: Executive Compensation, Firm Size and Their Impact on Optimal Top Income Tax Rates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 62-90, October.
    10. Bang Dang Nguyen & Kasper Meisner Nielsen, 2014. "What Death Can Tell: Are Executives Paid for Their Contributions to Firm Value?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2994-3010, December.
    11. Gabaix, Xavier & Edmans, Alex, 2010. "Risk and the CEO Market: Why Do Some Large Firms Hire Highly-Paid, Low-Talent CEOs?," CEPR Discussion Papers 7836, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2017. "Within-Firm Pay Inequality," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3605-3635.
    13. Bertrand Candelon & Arnaud Dupuy, 2015. "Hierarchical Organization And Performance Inequality: Evidence From Professional Cycling," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1207-1236, November.
    14. Antonio Falato & Dan Li & Todd Milbourn, 2015. "Which Skills Matter in the Market for CEOs? Evidence from Pay for CEO Credentials," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(12), pages 2845-2869, December.
    15. Yanhui Wu, 2011. "A Simple Theory of Managerial Talent, Pay Contracts and Wage Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp1067, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Na, Ke, 2020. "CEOs’ outside opportunities and relative performance evaluation: evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 679-700.
    17. Theilen Bernd, 2009. "Market Competition and Lower Tier Incentives," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-29, June.
    18. King, Timothy & Srivastav, Abhishek & Williams, Jonathan, 2016. "What's in an education? Implications of CEO education for bank performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 287-308.
    19. Eyal Winter, 2009. "Incentive Reversal," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 133-147, August.
    20. Talavera, Oleksandr & Yin, Shuxing & Zhang, Mao, 2021. "Tournament incentives, age diversity and firm performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 139-162.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contract theory; Complementarities; Principal-agent problem; Multiple agents; Teams; Synergies; Influence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9559. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.