We show that in competitive careers based on individual performance the least productive individuals may have the highest probabilities to be promoted to top positions. These individuals have the lowest fall-back positions and, hence, the highest incentives to succeed in career contests. This...

It is well-known that, in static models, minimum wages generate positive worker rents and, consequently, ine?ciently low effort. We show that this result does not necessarily extend to a dynamic context. The reason is that, in repeated employment relationships, ?rms may exploit workers’ future...

We identify a new problem that may arise when heterogeneous workers are motivated by relative performance schemes: If workers’ abilities and the production technology are complements, the firm may prefer not to adopt a more advanced technology even though this technology would costlessly...

It is well-known that, in static models, minimum wages generate positive worker rents and, consequently, inefficiently low e?ort. We show that this result does not necessarily extend to a dynamic context. The reason is that, in repeated employment relationships, ?rms may exploit workers' future...

We show that incompetitive careers based on individual performance the least productive individuals may have the highest probabilities to be promoted to top positions. These individuals have the lowest fall-back positions and, hence, the highest incentives to succeed in career contests. This...

In an asymmetric tournament model with endogenous risk choice by the agents it is shown that equilibrium efforts decrease (increase) with risk if abilities are sufficiently similar (different). Risk also affects winning probabilities. The interaction of both effects is analyzed.

In this paper we present results from a large scale real effort experiment in an online labor market investigating the effect of performance pay and two common leadership techniques: Positive expectations and specific goals. We find that positive expectations have a significant negative effect...