Robust relational contracts with subjective performance evaluation
研究了委托人对代理人绩效进行主观评估时的重复博弈模型，发现引入同时廉价谈话可使部分努力在稳健均衡中持续，且当双方足够耐心时，收益可接近完全有效，同时奖金规模合理、门槛非平凡、底薪不必为负。
We study a repeated principal–agent model with transferable utility, where the principal's evaluation of the agent's performance is subjective. Our focus is on equilibria that are robust to the addition of small privately observed shocks to the payoffs. Existing constructions of positive‐effort equilibria are not robust to such payoff shocks. Allowing for simultaneous cheap‐talk announcements makes some effort sustainable in a robust equilibrium, and payoffs can be arbitrarily close to fully efficient ones if players are sufficiently patient. In contrast to the existing literature, our near‐efficient equilibria exhibit realistic features: the bonus size is reasonable, the threshold for being paid a bonus is nontrivial, and the base wage need not be negative.