How managers frame the adoption of organizational practices may impact the returns to such practices, but managerial justification is often correlated with the use of particular practices or other dimensions of managerial quality. Using a randomized control trial, we study how the causal impacts...

To what extent, if at all, did employee-owned (EO) firms maintain jobs for workers compared to non-EO firms in the spring 2020 Covid-19 shock to the US economy? Did EO firms shift jobs from workplaces to work-from-home locations in the pandemic more or less than other firms? This paper uses a...

We present a model in which efficient long-term employment relationships are sustained by wage adjustments prompted by productivity shocks and outside job offers. These wage adjustments occur only sporadically, due to the presence of renegotiation costs. The model is amenable to analytical...

Cross-sectional differences are associated with differences in the intensity with which venture capitalists network. The observable factors relevant in explaining the intensity with which venture capitalists network include: 1) the value of the information transmitted through the network, 2) the...

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem and motivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of human resource policies in the performance of employee ownership companies, using employee survey data from 14 companies and a national...

While businesses require funding to start and grow, they also rely on human capital, which affects how they raise funds. Labor market frictions make financing labor different than financing capital. Unlike capital, labor cannot be owned and can act strategically. Workers face unemployment costs,...

Firms rarely cut compensation, so little is known about the after-effects when compensation reductions do occur. We use commission reductions at a sales firm to estimate how work effort and turnover change. In response to an 18% decline in sales commissions, corresponding to a 7% decline in...

We develop a dynamic equilibrium model of labor demand with adverse selection. Firms learn the quality of newly hired workers after a period of employment. Adverse selection makes it costly to hire new workers and to release productive workers. As a result, firms hoard labor and under-react to...

In this handbook of labor economics chapter we examine the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and productivity. HRM includes incentive pay (individual and group) as well as many non-pay aspects of the employment relationship such as matching (hiring and firing) and work...