Essays in Empirical Contracting and Development

Download or read book Essays in Empirical Contracting and Development written by Amrita Bihari Ahuja and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation's first essay explores the design and effects of incentive contracts in contexts with multiple products and multiple parties. Using data from a multi-product manufacturer in India, I test how incentives to two parties in its distribution network--salespersons and retailers--affect product sales. While profit maximization suggests equalization of returns, sales increases from salesperson incentives are six times those for retailer incentives. I provide evidence that differences in substitutability across products for the two parties, and the consequent differential costs of incentive provision, explain this disparity. The essay also traces the mechanisms by which incentives affect sales. Shifts in the allocation of salesperson effort between products and between retailers in different geographies, complementarities in effort, and information revelation through repeated interactions are all shown to be important. Finally, the essay argues that firms take these hidden incentive costs and interactions between parties into account when designing incentive systems.