CEO incentive contracts are commonplace in China but their incidence varies significantly across Chinese cities. We show that city and provincial policy experiments help explain this variance. We examine the role of two policy experiments: the use of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to attract...

When will reducing trade barriers against a low wage country cause innovation to increase in high wage regions like the US or EU? We develop a model where factors of production have costs of adjustment and so are partially “trapped” in producing old goods. Trade liberalization with a low...

Despite their theoretical value in tackling principal–agent problems at low cost to firms there is almost no empirical literature on the prevalence and correlates of performance bonds posted by corporate executives. We show that they are an important feature in today's CEO labour market in...

Despite its potential to raise productivity, performance-related-pay (PRP) is not widespread in market-oriented economies. Furthermore, despite secular changes conducive to its take-up, there is mixed evidence as to whether it has become more prominent over time. Ours is the first paper to...

This paper develops a framework to analyze the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization decisions of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. Decentralized control, on the...

During this election period many Americans are feeling angry towards the very rich, especially those working in the financial sector, who helped cause the Great Recession and yet were bailed out by the government. Increases in inequality might be tolerable at a time of growing consumption for...