Abstract: To boost employees’ performance, firms often offer monetary bonuses when production goals are reached. However, the evidence suggests that the particular level of a goal is critical to the effectiveness of this practice. Goals must be challenging yet achievable. Computing optimal...

The labour market situation of low-educated people is particularly critical in most advanced economies, especially among youngsters and women. Policies aiming to increase their employability either try to foster their productivity and/or to decrease their wage cost. Yet, the evidence on the...

The labour market situation of low-educated people is particularly critical in most advanced economies, especially among youngsters and women. Policies aiming to increase their employability either try to foster their productivity and/or to decrease their wage cost. Yet, the evidence on the...

Using longitudinal matched employer-employee data for the period 1999-2006, we investigate the relationship between age, wage and productivity in the Belgian private sector. More precisely, we examine how changes in the proportions of young (16-29 years), middle-aged (30-49 years) and older...

We employ a unique data set on white-collar workers that combines direct observations of individual use of information technology as well as objective information on individual performance. The main hypothesis we examine is whether heavier users of IT are more productive, and if heavier users of...

Using two matched plant level skills and productivity datasets for UK manufacturing we document that (i) more productive firms hire more skilled workers: in 2000, plants at the top decile of the TFP distribution (controlling for their four-digit industry) hired workers with, on average, around...