The paper asks why retirement can be so abrupt in countries such as France (½% of the workforce over 65), yet staged in Japan (8% over 65). We find part of the answer in tax laws that prevent people working and receiving a pension, and make little allowance for fair pension increases if...

High performance workplaces elicit greater involvement and productivity from employees but past theory and evidence remain divided on whether or not such workplaces are compatible with family friendly work practices. We present new evidence on the association using perceptions of a...

We use Australian establishment data to estimate the determinants of incentive schemes. Hypotheses are drawn from the new economics of personnel and the strategic choice literatures. Larger firms are more likely to use individual schemes such as piece rates. Firms where female workers...

The authors estimate the determinants of five types of variable payment schemes using panel data on German establishments in 1994 and 1996. Women were disproportionately included in schemes based on individual productivity and on profit-sharing, but not in those based on work group productivity....

The 1/n problem potentially limits the effectiveness of profit sharing in motivating workers. While the economic literature suggests that reciprocity can mitigate this problem, it remains silent on the optimal degree of reciprocity. We present a representative model demonstrating that...

We present a model showing that firms with interdependent worker productivity (team production) have a higher cost of absence and as a consequence will spend additional resources on monitoring absence. As a result, firms with team production should have lower absence rates, all else equal. Using...

This paper presents an information model in which workers receiving output-based pay experience less racial earnings discrimination than those receiving time rates and supervisory evaluations. Tests using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveal no racial wage differential among male...

This paper presents a model showing that profit sharing is subject to the 1/N problem in the case of independent worker productivity but not in the case of interdependent worker productivity. This implies the role of firm size on the likelihood of profit sharing will differ by the nature of the...

We show that the reported tendency for performance pay to be associated with greater wage inequality at the top of the earnings distribution applies only to white workers. This results in the white-black wage differential among those in performance pay jobs growing over the earnings distribution...