This paper investigates how an increase in competition for workers infuences the impact of social preferences on labor market outcomes. By sorting into firms with homogeneous work forces, workers can alleviate their suffering from social comparisons. Competition promotes choice and thus...

The paper studies the nature, determinants, and impacts of "negative" activities in organizations. In competing for promotion, the members in organizations can work not only to enhance their own performances, but also to "sabotage" their opponents' performances. They find it worthwhile to engage...

In very different fields of economics, economic inference and policy evaluation require economists to parametrize a production function that links measures of input factors to measures of output. While doing so, strong assumptions are implicitly made about microeconomic variables governing the...

Friedman (1962) suggested that in general, unfettered markets ensure the efficient provision of goods and services. Applying this logic to Education, he recommended that students be provided with vouchers and allowed to purchase schooling services in a free market ((Friedman (1955, 1962)). Hoxby...

In the context of principal-agent theory risk is largely seen as a source that causes inefficiencies and lowers incentives and accordingly is not in the principal’s interest. In this paper I compare two different designs of a collective tournament where output in a team is generated through a...

This paper invesigates the optimal compensation scheme for workers in a team who value not only absolute but also relative incomes. A worker is said to be more ambitious if his utility places more weight on relative income. In this case the firm can exploit the worker's preference for relative...

We consider the response to incentives as an explanation for productivity differences within a firm that paid its workers piece rates. We provide a framework within which observed productivity differences can be decomposed into two parts: one due to differences in ability and the other due to...

We use experiments to compare two institutions for allocating the proceeds of team production. Under revenue-sharing, each team member receives an equal share of team output; under leader-determined shares, a team leader has the power to implement her own allocation. Both arrangements are...

We analyze how the top firms and managers from one market (industry or country) would compete with those from another, to develop an integrated market for talent. In our competitive matching model, in two distinct markets talent has general and market-specific human capital (GHC and M-SHC)...

The introduction of team-based flexible production system substantially enhanced productivity and product quality at some progressive plants which adopted them. Most of these plants adopted a bundle of human resource practices which are designed to encourage workers to acquire broad skills and...