Performance Thresholds in Managerial Incentive Contracts*

Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement

Subjective Performance Measures in Optimal Incentive Contracts*

Incentive contracts often include important subjective components that mitigate incentive distortions caused by imperfect objective measures. This paper explores the combined use of subjective and objective performance measures in (respectively) implicit and explicit incentive contracts. We show that the presence of sufficiently effective explicit contracts can render all implicit contracts inf...

Incentive Contracts and Environmental Performance Indicators

A principal-agent (P-A) model is used to analyse the effect of environmental performance indicators (EPI) on environmental risk sharing within the firm. To achieve due diligence, the principal (top management), having to use imperfect performance indicators and fearing penalties for environmental damages, wants to avoid environmental harm and induce the agent (employee manipulating hazardous ma...

Efficient Incentive Contracts

A so-called "incentive contract" is a linear payment schedule, where the buyer pays a fixed fee plus some proportion of audited project cost. That remaining proportion of project cost borne by the seller is called the "sharing ratio." A higher sharing ratio creates more incentive to reduce costs. But it also makes the agent bear more cost uncertainty, requiring as compensation a greater fixed f...

Robust Incentive Contracts

We look at a principal–agent model in which the agent has to perform an action, the difficulty of which is better known ex interim than ex ante. We compare two contracting regimes; one with commitment to an ex ante negotiated contract, and one with an ex interim negotiated contract. The ex ante contract can not be too steep, but attempts to negotiate a steeper ex interim contract may result in ...