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Workplace surveillance, privacy protection, and efficiency wages

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Author Info
Patrick W. Schmitz

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Abstract

Consider an employer who wants her employee to work hard. As is well known from the e.ciency wage literature, the employer must pay the (wealth-constrained) employee a positive rent to provide incentives for exerting unobservable e.ort. Alternatively, the employer could make effort observable by costly workplace surveillance. It is argued that a privacy protection law preventing surveillance may increase the total surplus. While such a law reduces the employer’s profit, this loss can be overcompensated by the employee’s gain, because the employer invests in surveillance not only to implement higher effort, but also to reduce the employee’s rent.

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File URL: ftp://web.bgse.uni-bonn.de/pub/RePEc/bon/bonedp/bgse25_2005.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Bonn, Germany in its series Bonn Econ Discussion Papers with number bgse25_2005.

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Length: 19
Date of creation: Sep 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bon:bonedp:bgse25_2005

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Postal: Bonn Graduate School of Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24 - 26, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Fax: +49 228 73 9221
Web page: http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/index.php?id=494

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Related research
Keywords: Privacy protection laws; workplace surveillance; moral hazard;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
J83 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Workers' Rights

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Schmitz, Patrick W., 2004. "Job Protection Laws and Agency Problems Under Asymmetric Information," CEPR Discussion Papers 4031, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Innes, Robert D., 1990. "Limited liability and incentive contracting with ex-ante action choices," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 45-67, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Corporate Governance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 1-35, January.
    Other versions:
  4. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-44, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Pitchford, Rohan, 1998. "Moral hazard and limited liability: The real effects of contract bargaining," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 251-259, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Oz, Effy & Glass, Richard & Behling, Robert, 1999. "Electronic workplace monitoring: What employees think," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 167-177, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Dominique Demougin & Claude Fluet, 1998. "Mechanism Sufficient Statistic in the Risk-Neutral Agency Problem," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 154(4), pages 622-, December.
    Other versions:
  8. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1989. "Implicit Contracts, Incentive Compatibility, and Involuntary Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 447-80, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2005. "Allocating control in agency problems with limited liability and sequential hidden actions," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse27_2005, University of Bonn, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
  11. Yeon-Koo Che & Seung-Weon Yoo, 2001. "Optimal Incentives for Teams," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 525-541, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Pissarides, Christopher A., 2001. "Employment protection," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 131-159, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kräkel, Matthias & Schöttner, Anja, 2008. "Relative Performance Pay, Bonuses, and Job-Promotion Tournaments," IZA Discussion Papers 3702, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-10-30.


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