Data for: Promises in contract design

Abstract of associated article: In this paper, we propose a new channel of contract design to boost efficiency. If deviating from one's own words induces a self-imposed moral burden, the optimal contracting procedure with regard to cheap talk shall assign the responsibility for installing the nonbinding promise in the contract to whoever has the residual right to break such promise, in the spirit of Grossman and Hart (1986) and Hart and Moore (1990). To study whether a worker's own promise of effort level governs his real choice of effort in a gift exchange game, we implement four treatments in our experiments by varying two factors: (1) who (the firm or the worker) takes the position of the proposer to propose the contract and (2) whether the proposed contract includes a nonbinding specification of the worker's effort level. Our key finding is that when it is the worker who proposes the contract and the contract includes the worker's promised effort level, both the worker's actual effort choice and the aggregate profits are significantly higher than in each of the other three treatments (and there is little difference in worker effort otherwise).

关联论文摘要：本文提出一种可提升效率的契约设计新路径。若背离自身承诺会引发自我施加的道德负担，那么基于廉价磋商（cheap talk）的最优契约程序，应遵循格罗斯曼与哈特（Grossman and Hart, 1986）以及哈特与摩尔（Hart and Moore, 1990）的理论精神，将契约中非约束性承诺的设定责任，分配给拥有打破该承诺的剩余权利的一方。为探究工人自身的努力水平承诺是否会影响其在礼物交换博弈中的实际努力选择，我们通过操控两个变量设置了四组实验处理：其一为契约提议方的身份（企业或工人），其二为拟议契约是否包含工人努力水平的非约束性约定。我们的核心研究结果表明，当由工人作为契约提议方且契约中包含工人承诺的努力水平时，工人的实际努力选择与整体利润均显著高于其余三组实验处理；除此之外，工人的努力水平并无显著差异。