This paper examines the following question: how do representational concerns affect a firm's hierarchical structure? Employers, facing a population of agents who can be distinguished by their productivity and identity, seek to assign them to positions in the organizations hierarchy that differ...

We examine the mapping of the distribution of ability onto earnings in a hierarchical job assignment model. Workers are assigned to a continuum of jobs in fixed proportions, ordered by sensitivity to ability. The model implies a novel marginal productivity interpretation of wages. We derive...