Theoretical analyses of (optimal) performance measures are typically performed within therealm of the linear agency model. This model implies that, for a given compensation scheme,the agent's optimal effort is unrelated to the amount of noise in the performance measure...

The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of early entrepreneurship education. To this end, we conduct a randomized field experiment to evaluate a leading entrepreneurship education program that is taught worldwide in the final grade of primary school. We focus on pupils' development...

Previous empirical studies have shown that solo entrepreneurs benefit from having balanced skills: Jacks-of-All-Trades (JATs) are better entrepreneurs than specialists are. Nowadays however, the majority of entrepreneurs start up and run ventures together in teams.In this paper we test whether...

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 comparing...

The provision of non-pecuniary incentives in education is a topic that has received much scholarly attention lately. Our paper contributes to this discussion by investigating the effectiveness of grade incentives in increasing student performance. We perform a direct comparison of the two most...

Theoretical analyses of (optimal) performance measures are typically performed within the realm of the linear agency model. This model implies that, for a given compensation scheme, the agent's optimal effort is unrelated to the amount of noise in the performance measure. In contrast, expectancy...

We test the hypothesis, based on popular and theoretical perspectives, that entrepreneurs are more action-oriented than other occupational groups. We compare their playing strategies in an optimal stopping game using a randomized online experiment among 100s of entrepreneurs, managers and...

Revenue drift, where insufficient attention is given to economic, relative to social, goals, threatens social enterprise performance and survival. We argue that financial incentives can address this problem by redirecting employee attention to commercial tasks and attracting workers less...

A large school consolidation reform in the Netherlands changed minimum school size rules underlying public funding. The supply of schools decreased by 15 percent, but this varied considerably across municipalities. We find that reducing the number of schools by 10 percent increases pupils'...

This paper surveys the economics literature on overeducation. The original motivation to study this topic were reports that the strong increase in the number of college graduates in the early 1970s in the US led to a decrease in the returns to college education. We argue that Duncan and...