In dynamic principal-agent relationships, it is sometimes observed that the agent's reward depends only on the final outcome. For example, a student's grade in a course quite often depends only on the final exam score, where the performance in the problem sets and the mid-term exam is ignored....

The class of double-crossing preferences, where signaling is cheaper for higher types than for lower types at low signaling levels and the opposite is true at high signaling levels, underlines the phenomenon of countersignaling. We show that under the D1 refinement, the equilibrium signaling...

This paper provides a general analysis of signaling under doublecrossing preferences with a continuum of types. There are natural economic environments where indifference curves of two types cross twice, so that the celebrated single-crossing property fails to hold. Equilibrium exhibits a...

Wage inequality between individuals has changed little in Japan in recent times unlike in other developed countries. We examine changes in wage inequality within and between establishments during the prolonged stagnation period in Japan. Using a micro-level worker-establishment dataset from 1991...

Recent studies report that productivity increases under tournament reward structures than under piece rate reward structures. We conduct maze-solving experiments under both reward structures and reveal that overconfidence is a significant factor in increasing productivity. Specifically, subjects...

Recent studies report that productivity increases under tournament reward structures than under piece rate reward structures. We conduct maze-solving experiments under both reward structures and reveal that overconfidence is a significant factor in increasing productivity. Specifically, subjects...

We obtained the results for Japanese firms on the effects of profit-sharing, information-sharing and ESOPs by estimating production functions using a panel data set. The contribution of this paper is to identify the presence of a profit-sharing system and an information sharing system by...

Recent growth in fringe benefits is attributable to increases in both legally required and voluntarily provided benefits. Therefore, predictions based upon the conventional firm-level analysis, in which non-wage payments are assumed to be entirely exogenous, should be reexamined.

Many attempts have been made to explain practical pay and promotion systems in a firm as a consequence of rational behaviour of both the employer and the employee. Recently the incentive theory has played a key role in this literature. The main subject of the incentive approachesis analyzing how...

This paper examines the effects of school curricula on subsequent preference formation. The estimation results, using Japanese data, show that the actual curriculum at public elementary schools varies widely from area to area and is associated with preference formation. Specifically, pupils who...