This paper describes the spread of new work and pay practices in Danish private sector firms during the last two decades. The data source is two surveys directed at firms and carried out ten years apart. The descriptive analysis shows that large changes in the way work is organized in firms have...

This paper experimentally investigates the impact of different pay and relative performance information policies on employee effort. We explore three information policies: No feedback about relative performance, feedback given halfway through the production period, and continuously updated...

This paper examines the role of unobserved ability in explaining inter-industry wage differentials, drawing on data on brothers. Such data allow us to account for unmeasured abilities due to common family and community factors shared by siblings. Important advantages of this approach are that we...

The correlation in economic status among siblings is a useful ?omnibus measure? of the overall impact of family and community factors on adult economic status. In this study we compare brother correlations in long-run (permanent) earnings between the United States, on one hand, and the Nordic...

Variable pay creates a link between pay and performance but may also help firms in attracting more productive employees. Our experiment investigates the impact of performance pay on both incentives and sorting and analyzes the influence of repeated interactions between firms and employees on...

Earlier studies of the impact of performance pay on individuals’ behavior have primarily been concerned with the effects on their earnings and productivity. The productivity increases associated with the adoption of performance pay practices may, however, come at the expense of quality of life...