AEAweb: Journal Article Full-Text Access
Note to Institutional Subscribers: If you normally access AEAweb journal content via your university or firm's subscription and receive this page, please click
here. The most likely causes of this are a recently changed IP address, a new subscription, or the renewal of a lapsed institutional subscription. This page will stop appearing on the next synchronisation of the document delivery and authentication systems.
You may also click here for pay-per-view, Athens login and other access options .
AEA Members, please click the button below to access the login form:
Fehr, Ernst,
Oliver Hart, and
Christian Zehnder. 2011. "Contracts as Reference Points—Experimental Evidence."
,
101(2): 493-525.
Show Article Details
DOI: 10.1257/aer.101.2.493
Abstract:Hart and John Moore (2008) introduce new behavioral assumptions that can explain long-term contracts and the employment relation. We examine experimentally their idea that contracts serve as reference points. The evidence confirms the prediction that there is a trade-off between rigidity and flexibility. Flexible contracts—which would dominate rigid contracts under standard assumptions—cause significant shading in ex post performance, while under rigid contracts much less shading occurs. The experiment appears to reveal a new behavioral force: ex ante competition legitimizes the terms of a contract, and aggrievement and shading occur mainly about outcomes within the contract. (JEL D44, D86, J41)
Additional links:
Download Data Set
Authors:
Fehr, Ernst (Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, U Zurich)
Hart, Oliver (Harvard U)
Zehnder, Christian (U Lausanne)
JEL Classifications:
D44: Auctions
D86: Economics of Contract: Theory
J41: Labor Contracts
If you are an AEA member and do not have an AEAweb login, please
click here.
If you would like to become an AEA member, please see our
membership page.
If you arrived at this page via a journal article link, you will be redirected to the pdf after successful login.
If your first login attempt fails, and you have recently signed up for access or have recently changed your password, you may need to wait a few moments and try again.
Please contact us at
notify@aeaweb.org with any problems or questions.
Contents of Current Issues
Spring 2013 JEP
May 2013 AEJ: Policy
May 2013 AEJ: Micro
April 2013 AER
April 2013 AEJ: Macro
April 2013 AEJ: Applied
March 2013 JEL
Virtual Field Journals
In the News:
The Huffington Post reports on a study addressing the influence of lifestyle factors on shrinking height in the elderly published in the April issue of AEJ: Applied Economics.
Michael Frakes' (Cornell Law School) article on medical liability standards from the February issue of the American Economic Review was discussed as part of a Bloomberg opinion piece on medical malpractice.
Slate Magazine recently discussed former AEA president, George Akerlof's classic behavioral research and a 2012 American Economic Review study conducted by German and Swiss researchers to explore how gifting can motivate some employees more than cash incentives do in the workplace.
Contact Us
