This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

The Rise of Individual Performance Pay

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Ola Kvaloy ()
Trond Olsen ()
Abstract

Why does individual performance pay seem to prevail in human capital intensive industries? We present a model that may explain this. In a repeated game model of relational contracting, we analyze the conditions for implementing peer dependent incentive regimes when agents possess indispensable human capital. We show that the larger the share of values that the agents can hold-up, the lower is the implementable degree of peer dependent incentives. In a setting with team effects — complementary tasks and peer pressure, respectively — we show that while team-based incentives are optimal if agents are dispensable, it may be costly, and in fact suboptimal, to provide team incentives once the agents become indispensable.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.cesifo.de/DocCIDL/cesifo1_wp2145.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by CESifo GmbH in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 2145.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML, plain text, BibTeX, RIS (EndNote), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2145

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Poschingerstrasse 5, 81679 Munich
Phone: +49 (89) 9224-0
Fax: +49 (89) 985369
Web page: http://www.cesifo.de

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Julio Saavedra).

Related research
Keywords: relational contracts multiagent moral hazard indispensable human capital

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

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. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Costas Meghir & Barbara Sianesi, 1999. "Human capital investment: the returns from education and training to the individual, the firm and the economy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March. [Downloadable!]
  2. Thomas Lemieux & W. Bentley MacLeod & Daniel Parent, 2007. "Performance Pay and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 2850, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Itoh Hideshi, 1993. "Coalitions, Incentives, and Risk Sharing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 410-427, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Anke S. Kessler & Christoph Lülfesmann, 2006. "The Theory of Human Capital Revisited: on the Interaction of General and Specific Investments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 903-923, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Edward P. Lazear & Sherwin Rosen, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Fred Henneberger & Alfonso Sousa-Poza & Alexandre Ziegler, 2007. "Performance Pay, Sorting, and Outsourcing," IZA Discussion Papers 3019, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "The Firm As A Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory Of The Origins And Growth Of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(3), pages 805-851, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Macho-Stadler, Ines & Perez-Castrillo, J. David, 1993. "Moral hazard with several agents : The gains from cooperation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 73-100, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Ola Kvaløy & Trond E. Olsen, 2006. "Team Incentives in Relational Employment Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 139-170, January. [Downloadable!]
  10. 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)
  11. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-58, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. W. Bentley MacLeod, 2003. "Optimal Contracting with Subjective Evaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 216-240, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  13. Baker, George & Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1994. "Subjective Performance Measures in Optimal Incentive Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 1125-56, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. Schmidt, Klaus M. & Schnitzer, Monika, 1995. "The interaction of explicit and implicit contracts," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 193-199, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "The Other Side of the Trade-off: The Impact of Risk on Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 65-105, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Charles Brown, 1990. "Firms' choice of method of pay," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 43(3), pages 165-182, February.
  17. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1994. "The Firm as an Incentive System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 972-91, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Klein, Benjamin & Leffler, Keith B, 1981. "The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 615-41, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Maija Halonen, 2002. "Reputation And The Allocation Of Ownership," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 539-558, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Erling Barth & Bernt Bratsberg & Torbjørn Hægeland & Oddbjørn Raaum, 2006. "Who Pays for Performance?," IZA Discussion Papers 2142, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  21. Bull, Clive, 1987. "The Existence of Self-Enforcing Implicit Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 147-59, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Green, Jerry R & Stokey, Nancy L, 1983. "A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 349-64, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-17, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  24. 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)
    Other versions:
  25. Charles Brown, 1990. "Firms' Choice of Method of Pay," NBER Working Papers 3065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Lorne Carmichael, 1983. "Firm-Specific Human Capital and Promotion Ladders," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 251-258, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  27. 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)
  28. Jonathan Levin, 2002. "Multilateral Contracting And The Employment Relationship," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(3), pages 1075-1103, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Mookherjee, Dilip, 1984. "Optimal Incentive Schemes with Many Agents," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(3), pages 433-46, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  30. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  32. Christian Grund & Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Individual and Job-Based Determinants of Performance Appraisal: Evidence from Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3017, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  33. Murphy, Kevin J., 1999. "Executive compensation," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 38, pages 2485-2563 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? IDEAS also indexes book chapters.

This page was last updated on 2008-9-22.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.