Reciprocity in Dynamic Employment Relationships

Matthias Fahn

No 8414, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: This paper analyzes a dynamic relational contract for employees with reciprocal preferences. I develop a tractable model to investigate how “direct” performance-pay (promising a bonus in exchange for effort) and generous upfront wages (which activate the norm of reciprocity) interact over the course of an employee’s career. I show that firms can benefit from committing to paying non-discretionary wages in the future as this boosts their credibibility in the relational contract. The reason is that these wages have to be paid under any circumstances, whereas employees only reciprocate if the firm has kept its promises. Moreover, I demonstrate that more intense competition for workers can intensify the use of reciprocity-based incentives.

Keywords: reciprocity; relational contracts; commitment; norms and social preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D21 D86 D90 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8414.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Reciprocity in Dynamic Employment Relationships (2020)
Working Paper: Reciprocity in dynamic employment relationships (2019)
Working Paper: Reciprocity in Dynamic Employment Relationships (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8414

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