This paper uses the microdata of the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey to assess the contribution of occupational concentration to wage inequality between establishments and its growth over time. We show that occupational concentration plays an important role in wage determination...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known to contribute significantly to aggregate economic growth. However, little is known about the role played by management practices in SME growth since recession. We contribute to the literature on SME growth by analysing longitudinal...

Does competitive pressure foster innovation? In addressing this important question, priorstudies ignored a distinction between discrete innovation aiming at entirely new technologyand continuous improvement consisting of numerous incremental improvements andmodifications made upon the existing...

In our simple model the supervisor: i) cannot observe the agent's effort; ii) aims at inducing the agent to exert high effort; but iii) can only offer rewards based on performance. Since performance is only stochastically related to effort, evaluation errors may occur. In particular, deserving...

Social interaction with colleagues is an important job attribute for many workers. To attract and retain workers, managers therefore need to think about how to create and preserve high-quality co-worker relationships. This paper develops a principal-multi-agent model where agents do not only...

Improving schools depends on attracting high-caliber teachers and increasing retention, both made possible by appealing to teacher preferences. I deploy a discrete-choice experiment in a setting where teachers have reason to reveal their preferences. There are three main findings: (1) I...

We demonstrate why meaningful work, i.e. job-related activities that individuals view as purposeful and worthwhile, matters to labour economists. Building on self-determination theory, which specifies the roles of autonomy, competence, and relatedness as preconditions for motivation, we are the...

Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it because it generates anxiety. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public....

This paper uses data from nine tennis Grand Slam tournaments played between 2005 and 2007 to assess whether men and women respond differently to competitive pressure in a setting with large monetary rewards. In particular, it asks whether the quality of the game deteriorates as the stakes become...

A long-running debate in the small firms' literature questions the value of formal 'human resource management' (HRM) practices which have been linked to high performance in larger firms. We contribute to this literature by exploiting linked employer-employee surveys for 2004 and 2011. Using...