A common feature of public sector labor markets is the use of pay scales. This paper examines how the removal of pay scales impacts productivity, by exploiting a reform that compelled all schools in England to replace pay scales with school-designed performance related pay schemes. We find that...

This study examines how career interruptions and subsequent wages of employees are related. Using individual panel data of middle managers from the German chemical sector, we are able to differentiate between different reasons for interruptions as well as between various compensation components....

Making use of unique balanced panel data for the German chemical sector from the years 2008 to 2011, we explore the extent to which managers' compensation was affected by the economic crisis and the extent to which it increased afterwards. Carrying out longitudinal analyses, we find that, on...

The general-equilibrium effects of performance-related teacher pay include long-term incentive and teacher-sorting mechanisms that usually elude experimental studies but are captured in cross-country comparisons. Combining country-level performance-pay measures with rich PISA-2003 international...

According to the standard principal-agent model, the optimal composition of pay should balance the provision of incentives with the individual demand for insurance. Do income taxes alter this balance? We show that the relative share of PRP on total pay is reduced by higher average taxes, and is...

This paper examines the effects of performance pay on earnings using linked employee-employer panel data from Finland. These payroll data contain information on the exact share of earnings obtained and hours worked on a performance pay contract. Using these data, we estimate the effects of...

Job displacement in the U.S. is a serious threat to the earnings of long-tenured workers, through both (i) unemployment spells and (ii) reduced reemployment wages. Although full insurance requires both unemployment benefits and wage insurance, supply difficulties limit actual-loss insurance, and...

Efforts to insure long-tenured displacement workers against earnings losses from unemployment spells and lower wages on subsequent jobs have led to an array of government and employer programs. A policy typology is proposed to impose order on these programmatic efforts. The basic typology...

This paper examines the effect of wage variation on individual wages. The results reveal that wage variation by educational classifications positively affects wages, while the skewness has a negative effect. As has been referred in previous literature on the issue, both results are consistent...

Unemployment insurance experts lament the low Federal taxable wage base (TWB), last increased to $7000 per worker in 1982. The Federal TWB sets only a system minimum and by 2014 all but two states had TWBs that exceeded the minimum, opening up state TWB choice for study. States do align TWB with...