We develop and estimate an agency model of worker behavior under piece rates and fixed wages. The model implies optimal decision rules for the firm's choice of a compensation system as a function of working conditions. Our model also implies an upper and lower bound to the incentive effect (the...

We investigate the efficiency of piece-rate contracts using data from a field experiment, conducted within a tree-planting firm. During the experiment, the piece rate paid to planters was exogenously increased. Regression methods yield an estimate of the elasticity of output with respect to...

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...

Within the independent private-values paradigm, we derive the data-generating process of the winning bid for the last unit sold at multi-unit sequential English auctions when bidder valuations are draws from different distributions; i.e., in the presence of asymmetries. When the identity of the...

We describe and compare numerical methods used to approximate equilibrium bid functions in models of auctions as games of incomplete information. In such games, private values are modeled as draws from bidder-specific type distributions and pay-your-bid rules are used to determine transactions...

We construct a model of participation and bidding at multi-unit, sequential, clock auctions when bidders have multi-unit demand. We describe conditions sufficient to characterize a symmetric, perfect-Bayesian equilibrium and then demonstrate that this equilibrium induces an efficient allocation....