Kellogg Podcast on Sunk Costs
Sandeep Baliga
Jeff Ely Microeconomic Theory, Game Theory, Behavioral Economics, Evolution
We study the joint design of dynamic incentives and performance feedback for an environment with a coarse (all-or-nothing) measure of performance. Using a novel approach to incentive compatibility, we derive a two-phase solution that begins with a “silent phase” where the agent is given no feedback and is asked to work non-stop, and ends with a ”full-transparency phase” where the agent stops working as soon as a performance threshold is met. Hiding information leads to greater effort but comes at a cost because an ignorant agent is more expensive to motivate. The two-phase solution—where the agents ignorance is fully frontloaded—stems from a backward compounding effect that raises the cost of hiding information as time passes. When- ever the agent’s hazard rate of success falls sufficiently over time, the principal should eventually give up on them, as occurs in practice with up-or-out promotion policies.
Jeff Ely is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Economics at Northwestern University and an accomplished latte-artist. He is the director of the Program in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences at Northwestern, a member of several editorial boards and co-author of the blog Cheap Talk.
Sandeep Baliga
The Wall Street Journal Numbers