Firms that want to innovate successfully need to hire and motivate highly talented workers. This paper makes a key connection between the potential returns to innovation in terms of new products and the structure of compensation to skilled employees. We use linked employer-employee data to show...

In this paper we use a newly constructed dataset following 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to labor market and we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We...

Using an originally constructed dataset that follows 30,000 Italian individuals from high school to the labor market, we analyze whether the gender composition of peers in high school affected their choice of college major, their academic performance and their labor market income. We exploit the...

We bring together the strands of literature on the returns to education, its spillovers, and the role of the employer shaping the wage distribution. The aim is to analyze the labor market returns to education taking into account who the worker is (worker unobserved ability), what he does (the...

Research has consistently demonstrated a negative and significant relationship between occupational feminization and wages. This has traditionally been attributed to societal mechanisms undervaluing the work mainly performed by women. More recently, empirical evidence from the US and Europe has...

Using a new tax on fringe benefits initiated in India in 2005, this paper seeks evidence for the hypothesis that the difference in higher marginal tax rates on wages, relative to lower rates on fringe benefits, induces a reallocation of the total compensation package toward fringe benefits....

The aggregate labor share in U.S. manufacturing declined dramatically over the last three decades: Since the mid-1980's, the compensation for labor declined from 67% to 47% of value added which is unseen in any other sector of the U.S. economy. The labor share of the typical U.S. manufacturing...

We analyze how the reputational concerns of boards influence executive compensation and the use of hidden pay. Independent boards reduce disclosed pay to signal their independence, but are more likely to use inefficient hidden pay than manager-friendly boards. Stronger reputational pressures...

Contrary to previous literature we hypothesize that labor's interest may well – like that of shareholders – aim at securing the long-run survival of the firm. Consequently, employee representatives on the supervisory board could well have an interest in increasing incentive-based...

Relying on data of Chinese listed companies and city scale during 2005-2010, we document a positive relationship between the size and location of urban firms and total senior executive compensation. Tenure and corporate performance have a positive impact on the total senior executive...