We study an organization, consisting of a manager and a worker, whose success depends on its ability to estimate a payoff-relevant but unknown parameter. If the manager has private information about this parameter, she has an incentive to conceal it from the worker in order to motivate him to...

Firms use subjective performance evaluations to provide employees with both incentives and feedback. This article shows that if an objective measure of performance, however imperfect, is available, subjective evaluations with incentive effects can be sustained even without repeated interaction....

Standard principal-agent theory predicts that large firms should not use employee stock options and other stock-based compensation to provide incentives to non-executive employees. Yet, business practitioners appear to believe that stock-based compensation improves incentives, and mounting...

This paper models two key roles of subjective performance evaluations: their incentive role and their feedback role. The paper shows that the feedback role makes subjective pay feasible even without repeated interaction, as long as there exists some verifiable measure of performance. It also...