USING COST OBSERVATION TO REGULATE A MANAGER WHO HAS A PREFERENCE FOR EMPIRE‐BUILDING

Abstract

We study regulation of a manager who has a preference for empire‐building (high output), in the presence of moral hazard (unobservable effort) and adverse selection (unobservable productivity). We find that the optimal contract is linear in cost, being composed by a fixed payment plus a partial cost reimbursement. The preference for higher output reduces the manager's tendency to announce that his or her productivity is low, allowing a more powered incentive scheme (a lower fraction of the cost is reimbursed), which alleviates the problem of moral hazard.