Hidden Gaming in Hierarchies: Facts and Models

Jean-Jacques Laffont

The Economic Record, 1988, vol. 64, issue 4, 295-306

Abstract: We study a three‐level hierarchy in which the role of the supervisor is to transmit to the entrepreneur (the principal) information about workers' individual performances We are concerned with a form of discretion which arises from monitoring personalized incentive schemes through a supervisor, that we call hidden gaming. The supervisor can use his discretionary power to organize games unobserved by the principal which enable him to extract benefits from workers. This extortion activity decreases the level of efficiency of the organization and it is shown to subsist partly even when the principal monitors the supervisor with the best incentive scheme based on his own information. In some circumstances non‐personalized incentive schemes are optimal because of hidden gaming. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible motivations for public intervention within organizations to eliminate extortions due to hidden gaming.

Date: 1988
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