Relational Knowledge Transfers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Garicano, Luis; Rayo, Luis
• 署名单位: IE University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Utah System of Higher Education; University of Utah
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20160194
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 2695-2730
• 关键词: or-out contracts; implicit contracts; security design; continuous-time; labor-market; life-cycle; INVESTMENT; FIRMS; INFORMATION

摘要

We study how relational contracts mitigate Becker's classic problem of providing general human capital when training contracts are incomplete. The firm's profit-maximizing agreement is a multiperiod apprenticeship in which the novice is trained gradually over time and eventually receives all knowledge. The firm adopts a 1/e rule, whereby at the beginning of the relationship the novice is trained, for free, just enough to produce a fraction 1/e of the efficient output. After that, the novice earns all additional knowledge with labor. This rule causes inefficiently lengthy relationships that grow longer the more patient the players. A minimum wage is welfare enhancing.