Employees often learn about their ability while working, and the resulting beliefs interact with pay incentives to shape employment outcomes. This paper investigates this issue within a model that incorporates learning about ability on the job, dynamic selection, effort, and variation in pay...

We study equity price reactions to compensation contracting in experimental markets. Motivated by research reporting positive price reactions to adoption of performance-based compensation plans for executive managers, but postulating competing reasons as to why, we design an experiment that...

We study equity price reactions to compensation contracting in experimental markets. Motivated by research reporting positive price reactions to adoption of performance-based compensation plans for executive managers, but postulating competing reasons as to why, we design an experiment that...

It may be surprising that one of the most popular compensation schemes in business is so open to being hacked - to having managers cheat to win. We explore tournament theory to detail its vulnerabilities to various forms of cheating unilateral and multilateral. We identify who is most likely to...

Incentives often distort behavior: they induce agents to exert effort but this effort is not employed optimally. This paper proposes a theory of incentive design allowing for such distorted behavior. At the heart of the theory is a trade-off between getting the agent to exert effort and ensuring...

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...