This paper analyses the link between relative market value of representative subsets of athletes in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and individual wages. NBA athletes are categorised with respect to multiple performance characteristics utilising the k-means algorithm to cluster...

This paper provides a theoretical rationale for private investment in basic research. It explains the decision by some firms to hire scientists who have an intrinsic motivation to pursue academic research and allow them to do so while they also dedicate time to the firm's applied agenda. We show...

We examine the relationships with firm performance of the internal pay gap among individual members of the top management team (TMT) and the compensation level of TMT members relative to their industry peers. We find that pay gap is positively related to firm performance and that this positive...

Affordable higher education is, and has been, a key element of social policy in the United States with broad bipartisan support. Financial aid has substantially increased the number of people who complete university - generally thought to be a good thing. We show, however, that making education...

This paper considers the interplay of job assignments with the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of an agent. Job assignments influence the self confidence of the agent, and thereby his intrinsic motivation. Monetary reward allow the principal to complement intrinsic motivation with extrinsic...

We analyze a model in which workers direct their search on and off the job and employer-worker match productivities are private information. Employers can commit neither to post contracts such that wages are a function of tenure nor to disregard counteroffers. In this context, potential...

A pre-condition for employer learning is that signals at labor market entry do not fully reveal graduates' productivity. I model various distinct sources of signal imperfection - such as noise and multi-dimensional types - and characterize their implications for the private return to skill...

This paper studies optimal taxation of income and education when employers cannot observe workers' productivity and workers signal their productivity to firms by choosing both quantity and quality of education. We characterize constrained efficient allocations and derive conditions under which...

This paper deals with the relationship between management quality, firm size, and managerial compensation.

We run a field experiment to investigate whether competing in rank-order tournaments with different prize spreads affects individual performance. Our experiment involved students from an Italian University who took an intermediate exam in which one part was awarded on the basis of their relative...