A class of employment contracts entailing production targets and consequent rewards is studied. In a nondiscriminatory environment, a principal hiring many agents faces the problem of writing a common contract which induces the highest possible effort from each one of his agents. While a very...

<Para ID="Par1">We introduce a “nestedness” relation for a general class of sender–receiver games and compare equilibrium properties, in particular the amount of information transmitted, across games that are nested. Roughly, game <InlineEquation ID="IEq1"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$B$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mi>B</mi> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> is nested in game <InlineEquation ID="IEq2"> <EquationSource Format="TEX">$$A$$</EquationSource> <EquationSource Format="MATHML"> <math xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <mi>A</mi> </math> </EquationSource> </InlineEquation> if the players’ optimal...</equationsource></equationsource></inlineequation></equationsource></equationsource></inlineequation></para>

We propose a theory explaining the shape of contracts between local governments and the contractors they hire to run public facilities on their behalf. Governments are privately informed over the quality of the facility and risk-averse while risk-neutral contractors are subject to a moral hazard...