Dynamic Contractual Enforcement: A Model of Strikes

This paper provides a theory of strikes as part of a constrained efficient enforcement mechanism for an implicit contractual agreement. A firm possessing contemporaneously private information about demand engages in an enduring relationship with its workforce. If the information becomes perfectly observable subsequently, then, modulo discounting, the first-best is implementable, but strikes are always off the equilibrium path. If the observations of the workforce are imperfect strikes occur in equilibrium. The dynamic contracting problem is modeled as a repeated game with imperfect monitoring. The equilibrium exhibits production inefficiency and incomplete insurance to mitigate the inefficiencies caused by strikes.