Much of the empirical literature on PRP (Performance Related Pay) focuses on a question of whether the firm can increase firm performance in general and enterprise productivity in particular by introducing PRP and if so, how much. However, not all PRP programs are created equal and PRP programs...

This paper analyzes the characteristics of optimal menu of contracts in the case that agents’ wealth and actions are hidden from the principal. We first consider a benchmark case that the wealth levels of all agents are known to the principal, and we show that the power of incentives for...

This paper examines experimentally the effects of social identity and communication on teams’ distributional rules and wealth creation. The context studied is team production with multiple resource owners of different skills. In these organizational settings, heterogeneity of skills might...

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...

Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates are frequently used to measure the effects of managerial incentives on corporate innovation. However, these estimates suffer from two data problems. First, corporate innovation data have a discrete spike at zero because many firms never engage in corporate...

Using administrative data from a major Chinese insurance firm that raised its sales targets and rewards for insurance agents in a highly non-linear incentive system, we find that the improvement in productivity far outweighed the costs associated with bunching distortions and other gaming...

This paper studies the evolution of individual earnings inequality and dynamics in Canada from 1983 to 2016 using tax files and administrative records. Linking these individuals to their employers (and rich administrative records on firms) beginning in 2001, it also documents the relationship...

Profit sharing generates conflicting changes in the relationship between supervisors and workers. It may increase cooperation and helping effort. At the same time it can increase direct monitoring and pressure by the supervisor, and mutual monitoring and peer pressure from other workers that is...

The objective of this chapter is to show that the focus of modern corporate law theory on the concerns of shareholders is historically and geographically contingent. In doing so, it traces shareholder-stakeholder debates through the 20th century. The most obvious example is the simple...

We use an experiment to evaluate the effects of participatory management on firm performance. Participants are randomly assigned roles as managers or workers in firms that generate output via real effort. To identify the causal effect of participation on effort, workers are exogenously assigned...