Equal Sharing Rules in Partnerships

Bartling, Björn and Siemens, Ferdinand von (August 2007): Equal Sharing Rules in Partnerships. SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper No. 217

Abstract

Partnerships are the prevalent organizational form in many industries. Most partnerships share profits equally among the partners. Following Kandel and Lazear (1992) it is often argued that "peer pressure" mitigates the arising free-rider problem. This line of reasoning takes the equal sharing rule as exogenously given. The purpose of our paper is to show that with inequity averse partners - a behavioral assumption akin to peer pressure - the equal sharing rule arises endogenously as an optimal solution to the incentive problem in a partnership.

• Item Type: Paper (Discussion Paper)
• Keywords: equal sharing rule, partnerships, incentives, peer pressure, inequity aversion
• Collections: Special Research Fields > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems; Special Research Fields > Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems > A4 - Unvollständige Verträge, Marktinteraktion und soziale Vergleichsprozesse
• Subjects: 300 Social sciences > 330 Economics
• JEL Classification: D20, D86, J54
• Language: English