Subjective evaluations are widely used, but call for different contracts from classical moral-hazard settings. Previous literature shows that contracts require payments to third parties. I show that the (implicit) assumption of deterministic contracts makes payments to third parties necessary....

We investigate how managers smooth volatility in balance sheets, using the pension accounting change IAS 19R as a shock to balance sheet volatility. This shock increases pension plans' funding transparency, which is the source of volatility, without targeting actual plan funding. We find that...

We solve the equilibrium market structure in a labor market where vacancies and unemployed workers can meet either in an intermediated market where wages are determined by take-it-orleave- it offers, or in a directed search market where firms post wages. By using an intermediary agents avoid the...

This study provides empirical evidence for the economic rationality of wage rigidities. Theoretically wage rigidities can result from contracts, implicit contracts, from efficiency wages and from insider-outsider behaviour. Based on a survey of 801 firms strong support has been found for...

Fixed-term contracts are often considered a key policy tool for increasing employment. As we show that contract limitation lowers job satisfaction using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study, we detect a drawback of promoting temporary employment that has not been identified so far. We...

This paper studies a principal-agent relation in which the principal's private information about the agent's effort choice is more accurate than a noisy public performance measure. For some contingencies the optimal contract has to specify ex post inefficiencies in the form of inefficient...

Consider managers evaluating their employees' performances. Should managers justify their subjective evaluations? Suppose a manager's evaluation is private information. Justifying her evaluation is costly but limits the principal's scope for distorting her evaluation of the employee. I show that...

We show how sanctioning is more effective in increasing cooperation between groups than within groups. We study this using a trust game among ethnically diverse subjects in Afghanistan. In the experiment, we manipulate i) sanctioning and ii) ethnic identity. We find that sanctioning increases...

Gerlach and Stephan (1994) proposed a test based on the idea that the wage premium, the part of the wage which is not explained by the stock of human capital, should help predict variables such as career expectations (quit, change occupation, leave the labour force) and some job characteristics...

Temporary agency work and outsourcing to a service contractor are two forms of alternative work arrangements with rather complex legal aspects which firms use for external staffing. The regulatory complexity of temporary agency work can lead to intended or unintended non-compliance when firms...