The Right to Quit Work: An Efficiency Rationale for Restricting the Freedom of Contract

Patrick Schmitz and Müller, Daniel

No 15567, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: A principal hires an agent to provide a verifiable service. Initially, the agent can exert unobservable effort to reduce his disutility from providing the service. If the agent is free to waive his right to quit, he may voluntarily sign a contract specifying an inefficiently large service level, while there are insufficient incentives to exert effort. If the agent's right to quit is inalienable, the underprovision of effort may be further aggravated, but the service level is ex post efficient. Overall, it turns out that the total surplus can be larger when agents are not permitted to contractually waive their right to quit work. Yet, we also study an extension of our model in which even the agent can be strictly better off when the parties have the contractual freedom to waive the agent's right to quit.

Keywords: Moral hazard; Incentive theory; Labor contracts; Efficiency wages; Law and economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 D86 J83 K12 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-law and nep-mic
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The right to quit work: An efficiency rationale for restricting the freedom of contract (2021)
Working Paper: The Right to Quit Work: An Efficiency Rationale for Restricting the Freedom of Contract (2021)
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