This paper documents the methodology, content, and evolution of the ifo Human Resources (HR) Survey, a quarterly survey conducted by the ifo Institute since 2008 that targets human resource managers in German firms. While the ifo Institute’s traditional business surveys capture general...

Do firms that pay more offer better amenities, or does the greater pay compensate for worse amenities? Using matched U.S. employee-employer data, this paper estimates the joint distribution of wages, amenities, and job satisfaction across firms. Fifty amenities are captured applying topic...

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 importance of mission preferences, and predict that altruistic people sort into the public sector when they...

Employment contracts give a principal the authority to decide flexibly which task his agent should execute. However, there is a tradeoff, first pointed out by Simon (1951), between flexibility and employer moral hazard. An employment contract allows the principal to adjust the task quickly to...

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...

We study the treatment effect of grade retention, using a panel of French junior highschool students, taking unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of grade repetitions into account. We specify a multi-stage model of human-capital accumulation with a finite number of types representing...

A controversy has been simmering in law for at least 30 years about whether pro bono work should be mandatory for lawyers, who now donate 1-3% of their time to the poor. This has centered on the unmet legal needs of the poor, the duty of lawyers, and the contrast with US doctors, who are...

We provide an overview over different literature streams that aim at explaining the origin of persistent productivity differences across organizations by variation in the use of management practices. We focus on human resource management (HRM) practices, document gaps in the literature, and show...

This theoretical paper explores the impact of gender diversity on team production. The key assumption is that men derive utility from signaling high ability to female colleagues. The analysis shows that some gender diversity maximizes expected team production if (i) men and women have similar...

We develop a model of manager-employee relationships where employees care more for their manager when they are more convinced that their manager cares for them. Managers can signal their altruistic feelings towards their employees in two ways: by offering a generous wage and by giving attention....