Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay
Abstract
We analyze the optimal combination of promotion tournaments and individual performance pay in an employment relationship. An agent's effort is non-observable and he has private information about his suitability for promotion. We find that the principal does not provide individual incentives if it is sufficiently important to promote the most suitable candidate. Thus, we give a possible explanation for why individual performance schemes are less often observed in practice than predicted by theory. Furthermore, optimally trading off incentive and selection issues causes a form of the Peter Principle: The less suitable agent has an inefficiently high probability of promotion.Download Info
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Paper provided by Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany in its series SFB 649 Discussion Papers with number SFB649DP2007-045.Length: 31 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2007-045
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Related research
Keywords: Promotion Tournaments; Piece Rates; Hidden Characteristics; Hidden Action;Other versions of this item:
- Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, 09.
- D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
- M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-08-08 (All new papers)
- NEP-BEC-2007-08-08 (Business Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2011.
"Does Wage Dispersion Make All Firms Productive?,"
Scottish Journal of Political Economy,
Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(4), pages 455-489, 09.
- Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2011. "Does Wage Dispersion Make All Firms Productive?," Working Papers CEB 11-021, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
- Mahy, Benoît & Rycx, Francois & Volral, Mélanie, 2011. "Does Wage Dispersion Make All Firms Productive?," IZA Discussion Papers 5791, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- repec:dul:wpaper:2013/89489 is not listed on IDEAS
- Kräkel, Matthias & Schöttner, Anja, 2012. "Internal labor markets and worker rents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 491-509.
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