Optimal Contracts for Teams

Abstract

In a team subject to both adverse selection (each member's ability is known only to himself) and moral hazard (effort cannot be observed), optimal contracts are, under certain conditions, linear in the team's output. The outcome is the same whether the principal observes just the total output or each individual's contribution. Thus, monitoring is not needed to prevent shirking by team members; instead, the role of monitoring is to discipline the monitor. Copyright 1991 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.