Discussion Paper No. 871 Violence in incentives: Pain in a principal-agent model by Michael Suk-Young Chwe" Northwestern University March 1990 * Department of Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208. I must thank ‘many people for conversations, including Kyle Bagwell, Tai-Yeong Chung, Steve Matthews, and Stan Reiter and especially Stefano Fenoaltea, Jane Mansbridge, Joe! Mokyt, and Akira MOtomura, ‘who gave me detailed comments.Abstract, One reason a person hurts another isto get that person to do something. This paper uses a model to show that threatening pain can be rational and that pain is inflicted upon people who are poor in the sense of having bad alternatives. ‘The model corrects a confusion in previous models of slavery, gives an explanation why child and not adult laborers were beaten during the British industrial revolution, and prompts a discussion of the dangers of rational-choice modelling.