Dynamic Evaluation Design

Smolin, Alex (2017): Dynamic Evaluation Design.

Abstract

A principal owns a firm, hires an agent of uncertain productivity, and designs a dynamic policy for evaluating his performance. The agent observes ongoing evaluations and decides when to quit. While not quitting, the agent is paid a wage proportional to his perceived productivity; the principal claims the residual performance. After quitting, the agent secures a fixed safe payoff. I show that equilibrium evaluation policies are Pareto efficient and leave no rents to the agent. In a minimally informative equilibrium, for a broad class of performance technologies, the agent’s wage deterministically grows with tenure.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: evaluation, information design, career concerns, bandit experimentation, downward wage rigidity, up-or-out
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information ; Mechanism Design; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M5 - Personnel Economics > M52 - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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