Abstract: We study how local connections to persons in influential positions affect access to migrant jobs and government employment. In rural Nepal, it would not be surprising if social status strongly influenced the access to attractive labor market opportunities. This is not the case....

We study an important mechanism underlying employee referrals into informal low skilled jobs in developing countries. Employers can exploit social preferences between employee referees and potential workers to improve discipline. The profitability of using referrals increases with referee stakes...

Abstract: In the LSMS data for Nepal most agricultural laborers report daily wages, while econometric analysis on the data indicates that, for many villages, the laborers actually have long-term contracts. We have visited some of the villages to solve this puzzle. We find that in some cases the...

We examine the impact of a policy reform that gave employees in a municipality extended rights to self-declare sickness absence. To identify the effect of bypassing the physician as an absence certifier we contrast the development of absence in the reform municipality with absence in similar...

This paper uses data from a firm with team production to investigate the association between workers’ productivity, risk aversion and preferred bonus scheme (team or individual). The economic model makes a strong prediction in this case. Workers who produce more than the team average should...

So-called activation policies aiming at bringing jobless people into work have been a central component of welfare reforms across OECD countries during the last decades. Such policies combine restrictive and enabling programs, but their characteristic feature is that also enabling programs are...

This paper investigates dynamic peer effects in a sales company where workers operate in teams and receive a bonus that depends on both individual worker and team sales. We examine how the past productivity of co-workers affects the current individual performance of team members. To address this...

Abstract: Workplace referrals may resolve incentive problems that arise due to incomplete contracts. We use an in-depth primary data set covering low- and unskilled migrants from Western Uttar Pradesh (India), to examine this and alternative explanations for referral-based recruitment. We find...

A number of low- and middle-income countries have a severe shortage of health workers. This paper studies how health workers’ choices of labour supply and work effort impact on the quality of health services when health workers are in short supply. We analyse how policy measures such as...

The current shortage of health workers in many low-income countries poses a threat to the quality of health services. When the number of patients per health worker grows sufficiently high, there will be insufficient time to diagnose and treat all patients adequately. This paper tests the...