We highlight two effects of a works council that seem contradictory: the rent-seeking effect, which claims that a works council is set up by the workers to extract large rents from their employer, and the employment-security effect, which asserts that a works council is founded if the firm is...

This paper examines a principal’s trade-off when he decides whether to transfer knowledge to other members of the organization. Although knowledge makes an agent more productive (productivity effect), knowledge transfer could cause the agent to become selfemployed. The agent would then become...

This paper extends the discussion of simultaneous-move tournaments by focusing on the analysis of heterogeneous instead of homogeneous contestants. We show that the principal will not implement first-best efforts even though the agents are risk neutral and not limited in wealth, and despite the...

I introduce a concept of emotions that emerge when workers evaluate their individual performances or when they compare their own performances with those of co-workers. I analyze the interplay of emotions and incentives by focusing on a certain scheme of worker compensation that is frequently...

Agency theory emphasizes that separating ownership and control can lead to inefficiencies in corporations, but the literature on strategic delegation points out that the owner will profit from this separation due to advantages from self-commitment. In this paper, both literatures are combined....