Gift exchange and the separation of ownership and control

► We conduct a laboratory experiment where the baseline is the bilateral gift-exchange game between an owner-manager and a worker. ► We compare the baseline with two trilateral treatments where the shareholder owns the firm and the manager controls it. ► Gift exchange appears to be robust to the firmʼs separation of ownership and control. ► The wage-effort relationship is similar in the treatments with a wage endogenously chosen by a member of the firm. ► Workers seem to act reciprocal towards the firm as a whole and not towards one of its members in particular.