We study interfirm price competition in the presence of horizontal and vertical intrafirm conflicts in each firm. Intrafirm conflicts are captured by a principal-agent framework with firms employing more than one agent and implementing a tournament incentive scheme. The principals offer premium...

We study interaction effects between intra-firm conflicts and interfirm competition on a duopolistic market with seller firms employing one or more agents and implementing tournament incentives. We show that inter-firm competition leads to higher incentive intensity, higher efforts and output...

Transparency in teams can induce cooperation. We study contribution decisions by agents when previous decisions can be observed. We find that an information chain, in which each agent directly observes only the decision of her immediate predecessor, is at least as effective as a...

Motivated agents are characterized by increasing their effort if their work generates not only a monetary return for them but also a benefit for a mission they support. While their motivation may stem from working for their preferred (i.e., the `right') mission, it may also be the principal's...

This paper presents results from an experiment designed to study the effect of self reporting risk preferences on strategy choices made in a subsequently played 2 X 2 coordination game. The main finding is that the act of answering a questionnaire about one's own risk preferences significantly...

In this paper we treat instructions as an experimental variable. Using a public good game, we study how the instructions' format affects the participants' understanding of the experiment, their speed of play and their experimental behavior. We show that longer instructions do not significantly...

One may hope to capture the behavioral and emotional effects of downsizing the laborforce in rather abstract settings as an ultimatum game (see Fischer et al. (2008)), or try to explore downsizing in its more natural principalagent scenario with a labor market background. We pursue the latter...

If the future market wage is uncertain, engaging in long–term employment is risky, with the risk depending on how regulated the labor market is. In our experiment long–term employment can result either from offering long–term contracts or from repeatedly and mutually opting for...

Sanctions are widely used to promote compliance in principal-agent-relationships. While there is ample evidence confirming the predicted positive incentive effect of sanctions, it has also been shown that imposing sanctions may in fact reduce compliance by crowding-out intrinsic motivation. We...

One-shot interaction and repeated interaction often co-exist in the real world. We study possible behavioral effects of this co-existence in a principal-agent setting, in which a principal simultaneously employs a permanent and a temporary agent. Our experimental results indicate that there is...