The laws eliminating or severely restricting the collective bargaining rights of public-sector unions passed since 2011 are one of the most important developments in both workplace law and politics in recent memory. Among other things, public-sector workers now comprise more than half of all...

Employees show more commitment to an employer that promotes the greater good, and they work harder too. Moreover, many people are willing to give up some of their compensation to contribute to a social cause. Being able to attract a motivated workforce would be particularly important for the...

This study examines the predictions of the theory of incentives, under which wage that is less sensitive to level of performance or skills attracts lower quality employees, while wage that is more sensitive to these factors attracts higher quality employees. The distribution of wage in the...

Exploiting three variations in sickness absence policy for civil servants in Italy, this paper assesses the importance of monitoring and monetary incentives in addressing absenteeism. Sickness absence is sensitive to monitoring intervals for random inspections, while moderate monetary incentives...

Exploiting two unexpected variations in sickness absence policy for civil servants in Italy, this paper assesses the relative importance of monitoring and monetary incentives in determining a basic measure of effort: presence at work. When stricter monitoring was introduced together with an...