Should managerial delegation contracts be made before or after union wage setting? A game-theoretic analysis

This paper analyzes a multiple-stage game in which, at the final stage, two (managerial) firms compete over quantities in the product market. Prior to this stage, firm-specific unions set the workers' wages, while the owners of both firms hire managers and provide them with incentive contracts. Owners can freely decide to arrange the managerial contract before or after the (non-managerial) wage determination stage. Hence, the endogenous choice of the incentive contract stage is derived. The possibility of multiple equilibria arises, where both owners choose managerial contracts before or after unions' wage setting, crucially depending on unions' preferences. Such results also prove to be true for a remarkable degree of asymmetry in preferences over wages vis-à-vis employment across unions.