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All-or-Nothing Monitoring

American Economic Review 2008 98(4), 1619-1628
A principal can observe both the output and input of an agent who works at a job involving multiple tasks. We provide a simple theory that explains why it may be optimal for the principal to use only an output-based incentive contract, even though the principal can monitor the agent's actions perfectly in all but one task and knows exactly which action is optimal for each task.