Organizational structure and the hold-up problem

Arbeitspapier

In this note, I consider a setting in which an agent can exert costly unobservable effort towards two activities and is, a priori, uncertain about its ability to perform them. A (non-contractible) ability enhancing investment can be performed. The lack of commitment from a Principal concerned with (informational) rent extraction, and who is in control of both activities, induces the standard underinvestment outcome of Hold-Up problems. It is then shown that, if the two activities are assigned to two different Principals, ex-post incentives will be more powerful generating, from an ex-ante perspective, higher incentives for ability enhancing investment. The combination of higher ex-ante investments and expost incentives produces an outcome that is superior than a single Principal’s outcome in terms of efficiency. This suggests that organizational structure, through its influence on the design of incentives over contractible variables, can play a key role is solving Hold-Up problems.

Objekt anzeigen

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Texto para discussão ; No. 521

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Carrasco, Vinicius
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Departamento de Economia
• (wo): Rio de Janeiro
• (wann): 2006

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/176004