Rewarding Failure
By Nishant Ravi, Aditya Kuvalekar
DOI
ssrn.com/abstract=3281644
Citation
Ravi, Nishant., Kuvalekar, Aditya. (2025). Rewarding Failure ssrn.com/abstract=3281644.
Copyright
2025
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Abstract
We explore when and how to reward failure in a dynamic principal-agent relationship with experimentation. The agent receives flow rents from experimentation, and divides his time between searching for evidence of success and failure about the underlying project. The principal commits in advance to rewards conditional on the type of evidence. At each instant, the principal makes a firing decision. We show that the principal’s optimal equilibrium features a stark reward structure—either the principal does not reward failure at all or rewards success and failure equally.

Nishant Ravi is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include applied microeconomic theory, game theory, organisational economics, information economics.

Nishant Ravi
Nishant Ravi