Many street-level bureaucrats (such as caseworkers) have the dual task of helping some clients, while sanctioning others. We develop a model of such a street-level bureaucracy and study the implications of its personnel policy on the self-selection and allocation decisions of agents who differ...

This paper explores the meaning and implications of the desire by workers for impact. We find that this impact motive can make a firm in a competitive labor market face an upward-sloping supply curve of labor, lead workers with the same characteristics but at different firms to earn different...

Civil servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people's personal experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive...

Using simple game-theoretical models, this paper studies the role of pre-determined rules for HRM policies. We consider a model in which HRM decisions affect employees' self-images and thereby their motivation. We show that in the absence of written rules, managers are too reluctant (1) to...

This discussion paper has led to a publication in the <I>Public Administration Review</I>, 2014, 74(2), 144-155.<P> A rich literature in public administration has shown that public sector employees have stronger altruistic motivations than private sector employees. Recent economic theories stress the...</p></i>

We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker's altruism, and increases or decreases with a worker's laziness depending on his...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <A HREF="http://personal.vu.nl/b.vander.klaauw/promotions.htm">'Journal of Population Economics'</A>, 2011, 24, 1513-1548. <P> We focus on the dynamic relation between wage increases, promotions and job changes. We relate our empirical analyses to the theoretical model of Gibbons and Waldman (1999). In the...</p></a>

A recent literature in economics assumes that workers differ in their mission preferences. These studies predict a premium on the matching of mission preferences between a worker and employer. This paper uses data from the Dutch LISS panel to examine this prediction for government workers....

Theory predicts that entrepreneurs have distinct attitudes towards risk and uncertainty, but empirical evidence is mixed. To better understand the unique behavioral characteristics of entrepreneurs and the causes of these mixed results, we perform a large ‘lab-in-the-field’ experiment...

This discussion paper led to a publication in the <A HREF="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268109000109">'Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization'</A>, 2009, 70(1-2), 374-388.<P> In this paper we analyze a large sample of individual responses to six lottery questions. Wederive a simultaneous estimate of risk aversion γ and the time preference discount...</p></a>