Controlling innovative projects with moral hazard and asymmetric information

Rouven Bergmann and Gunther Friedl

Research Policy, 2008, vol. 37, issue 9, 1504-1514

Abstract: We study optimal incentive contracts offered to a research and development (R&D) manager, who can propose an innovative project and is in charge of conducting this project. The manager has private information about the project profitability and he exerts unobservable levels of different kinds of effort in order to increase the feasibility of successfully completing the project in terms of meeting product specifications. In particular, we analyze a situation, in which two interrelated performance measures on different hierarchical levels are available for contracting purposes. We show how asymmetric information about the project and further characteristics of the project influence the weights of the performance measures. We also make a number of empirical predictions about the composition of compensation contracts for R&D managers.

Date: 2008
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