Delegation, monitoring, and relational contracts

This paper analyzes in a relational contracting framework when a principal should fully delegate a task to a team of hired workers or only partially delegate the task and work herself in the team. It is shown that full delegation is more likely to be optimal under a less efficient monitoring technology, lower generated surplus, lower complementarity of efforts, or a larger team of workers. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.