Contracts with Wishful Thinkers

In a setting with a wishful thinking agent and a realistic principal, the paper studies how incentive contracts should be designed to control for both moral hazard and self-deception. The properties of the contract that reconciles the agent with reality depend on the weight the agent attaches to anticipatory utility. When this is small, principal and agent agree on full recollection. For intermediate values the principal bears an extra cost to make the agent recall bad news. For large weights the principal renounces inducing signal recollection. We extend the analysis to the case in which the parameter of anticipatory utility is private information. The distinction between the two settings assumes practical relevance if preferences can be related to personality characteristics as in this case the parameter of anticipatory utility could be learned through psychological testing.