We develop a theory of firm scope in which integrating two firms into one facilitates the allocation of resources, but leads to weaker incentives for effort, compared with non-integration. Our theory makes minimal assumptions about the underlying agency problem. Moreover, the benefits and costs...

Many countries are trying to incentivize fathers to increase their share in parental leave and in household work to improve female labor market opportunities. Our unique data set stems from a natural experiment in Sweden. The data comprises all children born before (control group) and after the...

We investigate how emigration flows from a developing region are affected by xenophobic violence at destination. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique survey among more than 1000 households, collected in Mozambique in summer 2008, a few months after a series of xenophobic attacks in South...

Despite its importance in global illegal migration, there is little, and mostly theoretical research on human smuggling. We suggest an analytical framework to understand the micro structure of the human smuggling market. Migrants interact with smuggling and financing intermediaries; these may or...

We suggest a parsimonious dynamic agency model in which workers have status concerns. A firm is a promotion hierarchy in which a worker's status depends on past performance. We investigate the optimality of two types of promotion hierarchies: (i) internal labor markets, in which agents have a...

We investigate a team setting in which workers have different degrees of commitment to the outcome of their work. We show that if there are complementarities in production and if the team manager has some information about team members, interventions that the manager undertakes in order to...

We estimate the effect of downsizing announcement on workplace performance using data from a German bakery chain of 193 shops. Faced with intensified competition, the firm decided to sell or close down 57 of its worst performing shops. We identify the effect of downsizing from a plausibly...

We test the effectiveness of team incentives by running a natural field experiment in a retail chain of 193 shops and 1,300 employees. As a response to intensified product market competition, the firm offered a bonus to shop teams for surpassing sales targets. A bonus to teams rather than...

Irregular migrants from Africa and the Middle East flow into Europe along land and sea routes under the control of human smugglers. The demise of the Gaddafi regime in 2011 marked the opening of the Central Mediterranean Route for irregular border - crossing between Libya and Italy. This...