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：本文提出一种全新的契约设计路径以提升效率。若违背自身承诺会引发自我施加的道德负担，那么针对廉价磋商（cheap talk）的最优契约程序，应遵循格罗斯曼与哈特（Grossman and Hart, 1986）以及哈特与莫尔（Hart and Moore, 1990）的理论范式，将契约中无约束力承诺（nonbinding promise）的设定责任赋予拥有打破该承诺剩余控制权（residual right）的一方。为探究工人对努力水平的自我承诺是否会影响其在礼物交换博弈（gift exchange game）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：（1）由谁（企业方或工人方）担任契约提议者以拟定契约；（2）拟议契约是否包含对工人努力水平的无约束力规定。我们的核心研究发现为：当由工人提出契约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总利润均显著高于其余三组实验处理；其余情形下工人的努力水平差异不大。