This article identifies a new type of cost associated with centralization. If workers are liquidity constrained, it may be less costly to motivate a worker who is allowed to work on his own idea than a worker who is forced to follow the manager's idea. Thus, it may be optimal to let workers...

Profit-maximizing owners of firms may find it optimal to provide managers with incentives to maximize sales in addition to profits. This influences the outcome of the bargaining game between workers and managers over workers' wages and helps to solve the problem of underinvestment by workers in...

This paper provides a possible explanation for the empirically observed size-wage effect and inter-industry wage differences. It develops a model in which incentives for workers to accumulate general human capital are provided by corporate tournaments, where workers with the highest level of...

The corporate finance literature suggests that a financially constrained firm invests less than an identical unconstrained firm. This does not imply that financial frictions cause firms to invest less than they would in a frictionless economy. When firms compete for investment funds, an increase...

This paper models two key roles of subjective performance evaluations: their incentive role and their feedback role. The paper shows that the feedback role makes subjective pay feasible even without repeated interaction, as long as there exists some verifiable measure of performance. It also...

This article provides a simple theoretical model of trade secrets in hierarchical firms. A crucial assumption is that each manager has access to trade secrets pertaining to his own hierarchical level as well as to all lower levels. The article explores some implications of this assumption for...

A body of empirical work documents that most people believe they are above average in a variety of skills and abilities. This paper argues that such evidence does not necessarily imply that people process information in an irrational way. I build a model in which people can learn about their...

A body of empirical work documents that most people believe they are above average in a variety of skills and abilities. This paper argues that such evidence does not necessarily imply that people process information in an irrational way. I build a model in which people can learn about their...

This paper studies how promotion tournaments motivate workers to accumulate human capital when wages are constrained by outside labor markets. Patient firms can retain some control over tournament prizes through a relational contract, but if the firms are competitive, full efficiency does not...