Teamwork as a Self-Disciplining Device

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fahn, Matthias; Hakenes, Hendrik
• 署名单位: Johannes Kepler University Linz; University of Bonn
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20160217
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1-+
• 关键词: peer pressure; moral hazard; incentives; CONTRACTS; teams; DESIGN

摘要

We show that team formation can serve as an implicit commitment device to overcome problems of self-control. If individuals have present-biased preferences, effort that is costly today but rewarded at some later point in time is too low from the perspective of an individual's long-run self If agents interact repeatedly and can monitor each other, a relational contract involving teamwork can help to improve performance. The mutual promise to work harder is credible because the team breaks up after an agent has not kept this promise, which leads to individual underproduction in the future, reducing future utility.