Traditionally, researchers have had difficulty testing the relationship between the degree of risk or uncertainty in workers' environments and incentive pay. The authors employ Prendergast's (2002) theory that incorporates the delegation of worker authority into the principal-agent model to...

Using data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) employer survey, we document a new empirical finding that workers are less likely to receive promotions in nonprofit organizations than in for-profit firms. Among other results, we also show that: wage increases associated with...

We study a worker's incentives to invest in non-verifiable skills. We do this within the context of recent innovative work practices, where jobs have become more flexible. When jobs are flexible, standard approaches in the literature for firms to credibly reward skills (i.e. committing ex-ante...

The authors empirically test Prendergast’s (2002) theory that incorporates the delegation of worker authority into the principal-agent model to explain the lack of consistent empirical support for a tradeoff between risk and incentives. Using data from the 1998 British WERS, the authors...

Agency theory predicts a negative relationship between risk and incentives, yet recent empirical evidence has not consistently found such a relationship. In fact, some researchers have found a positive relationship. By introducing competition for heterogeneous managers, who differ in their...