We study optimal incentives in a principal-agent problem in which the agent's outside option is determined endogenously in a competitive labor market. In equilibrium, strong performance increases the agent's market value. When this value becomes sufficiently high, the threat of the agent's...

Over the last decade many districts have implemented performance pay incentives to reward teachers for improving student test scores. Economic theory suggests that these programs could alter teacher work effort, cooperation, and retention. Because teachers can choose to work in a performance pay...

A ranking of a variety of incentive devices used by firms according to their perceived effectiveness by employees is identified. The determinants of employee incentive preferences are also investigated, suggesting a ‘menu’ of conditions under which an organization’s personnel policies will...

This study examines whether firms incorporated in mainland China benefit from cross-listing in Hong Kong, China. The Hong Kong Stock Market has more stringent governance rules and a better investor protection than the mainland market. Hong Kong companies generally provide strong incentives to...

This paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of performance pay to government workers and how performance pay interacts with demand-side information. In an experiment covering 145 child day-care centres, I implement three separate treatments. First, I engineer an exogenous change in...

We consider a repeated moral hazard problem, where both the principal and the wealth-constrained agent are risk-neutral. In each of two periods, the agent can exert unobservable effort, leading to success or failure. Incentives provided in the second period act as carrot and stick for the first...

Job satisfaction has long been an important and interesting area in organizational research. More recently, considerable attention has been focused on the concept of job satisfaction and factors that affect it. A major reason for the tremendous interest in this work attitude is that it has been...

In most states, K-12 teachers receive tenure after serving a probationary period of several years. Teachers with tenure, or a continuing contract, are guaranteed due process before they can be dismissed from their job. I use a restricted use version of the 2007 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS)...

Work motivation was and remained a "hot topic" for management and organizational behavior studies, as well as a major concern for practice of Human Resource Management. While such studies have evidenced a lot of factors of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation having different influences on...