Managers are supervising more and more workers, and firms are getting flatter. However, not all firms have been keen on increasing the number of subordinates that their bosses manage (referred to as the “span of control” in human resource management), contending that there are limits to...

This paper examines the phenomenon of occupational hierarchies among immigrant labor groups in the United States. Using census data for 1940-2011 we document the persistent ranking of immigrant labor groups in major metropolitan areas reflected by their position in the empirical distribution of...

The gender wage gap is largely due to men and women holding different kinds of jobs. This job segregation is partly driven by gender differences in careers in corporate hierarchies. Research has shown that the careers of men and women begin to diverge immediately upon entry into the labor market...

While US companies mainly list their board of directors alphabetically, this is not the case for Chinese companies, most of which list their independent directors last. We interpret the listing order of Chinese directors as board hierarchy, reflecting power allocation within the board. Based on...

We study the formation of coalitions that provide public goods to members. Individuals are linked on a tree graph and those with similar preferences are connected on the tree. We present a well-defined solution that selects envy-free allocations from the core

This paper presents an asymptotic analysis of hierarchical marketing-production systems with stochastic demand and stochastic production capacity modelled as finite state Markov processes. The decision variables used are advertising and production rates which influence capacity, demand, and...

Using British linked employer-employee data, we show that the establishment size effect for supervisors is approximately twice that for non-supervisors. This difference is routinely statistically significant, not explained by other controls and is an important determinant of the difference in...

To be successful innovators, organizations must select the best ideas for implementation. Extant research shows that idea selection is distorted by a number of biases, but has failed to consider hierarchy, a key element of organizations. We examine how hierarchical distance between an idea’s...

Hierarchies are pervasive in political settings. From judges to elected politicians, from activists to bureaucrats, political agents compete to be promoted to higher positions. This paper studies political tournaments and their impact on key aspects of political performance: accountability and...