MONITORING IN TEAMS: USING LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS TO STUDY A THEORY OF THE FIRM

Abstract

Alchian and Demsetz’s influential explanation of the classical business firm (The American Economic Review, 1972, 62, 777–795) argues that there is need for a concentrated residual claim in the hands of a central agent, to motivate the monitoring of workers. We model monitoring as a way to transform team production from a collective action dilemma with strong free riding incentives to a productivity-enhancing opportunity with strong private marginal incentives to contribute effort. In an experiment, we have subjects experience team production without monitoring, team production with a central monitor, and team production with peer monitoring. Then subjects vote on whether to employ the central monitor, who gets to keep a fixed share of the team output, or to rely on peer monitoring, which entails a coordination or free riding problem. Our subjects usually prefer peer monitoring but they switch to the specialist when unable to successfully self-monitor. We provide evidence for situations in which team members resist the appointing of a central monitor and succeed in overcoming coordination and free riding problems as well as for a situation in which an Alchian–Demsetz-like firm grows in the laboratory.