Evidence on whether nonprofit workers earn less than for-profit workers is mixed. I argue that we should only expect wage gaps when labor demand of the nonprofit sector of an industry is low. When labor demand is high, there are not enough “motivated” workers to fulfill demand, so nonprofits...

A model of employment relation is provided in which agents choose whether to seek self-esteem through work. When they do, they develop an intrinsic motivation to effort. Depending on non-wage characteristics of the job the employer wants to fill, she can encourage this intrinsic motivation by a...

We re-examine the labor donation theory of not-for-profits and show that these organizations may exist not necessarily because motivated workers prefer to work in them, or that they dominate for-profits in terms of welfare, but because the excess supply of motivated workers makes the non-profit...

This paper aims to test the intrinsic motivation of licensed in-home services (LIHS) employees with an emphasis on the differences in hourly wages paid to the employees of non-profit LIHS and for-profit LIHS employees. Our approach is to test intrinsic motivation by using the “labor...

We re-examine the labor donation theory of not-for-profits and show that these organizations may exist not necessarily because motivated workers prefer to work in them, or that they dominate for-profits in terms of welfare, but because the excess supply of motivated workers makes the non-profit...

We study the effects of a field experiment designed to motivate employee ideas, at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements via an online system. In the experiment, the company randomized 19 account teams into treatment and control...

Are monetary and non-monetary incentives used as substitutes in motivating effort? I address this question in a laboratory experiment in which the choice of the job charac- teristics (i.e., the mission) is part of the compensation package that principals can use to influence agents' effort....

Empirical evidence shows that workers care about the mission of their job in addition to their wage. This suggests that employers can use the job mission to incentivize and screen their workers. I study a model in which a principal selects an agent to develop a project and influences the agent's...

A substantial body of research investigates the design of incentives in firms, yet less is known about incentives in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a field experiment in which agents hired by a public health organization are...

This paper studies wage structure characteristics and their incentive effects within one firm. Based on personnel records and an employee survey, we provide evidence that wages are attached to jobs and that promotions play a dominant role as a wage determinant. We furthermore show that a...