Advanced Search

Papers Articles Authors Institutions Data (FRED®)

Abstract

Agency costs are a cost of production, and firms that do a better job of minimizing these costs should exhibit better performance. This paper tests this hypothesis by calculating the performance elasticity of average employee hourly compensation for U.S. manufacturing firms. This elasticity indicates the degree of alignment between employee and shareholder objectives. The estimated elasticity is indistinguishable from zero in low performance firms, and it equals 0.193 in high performance firms. While it is difficult to know whether an elevated performance sensitivity causes better firm performance, clearly the best performers in manufacturing industries link average employee pay to performance.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://128.118.178.162/eps/lab/papers/9607/9607001.doc.gz
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Labor and Demography with number 9607001.

as HTML HTML with abstract plain text plain text with abstract BibTeX RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite) ReDIF in new window

Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: 10 Jul 1996
Date of revision: 15 Apr 1998
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:9607001

Note: Type of Document - MS-Word 7.0 for Windows 95; prepared on IBM PC - Windows 95; pages: 37 ; figures: included. Send me e-mail if there are any problems. I can attatch a copy of the file to my response, or I can arrange another form of delivery.
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://128.118.178.162

Related research

Keywords: incentives; agency costs; profit-sharing; pay-performance sensitivities; firm performance;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

• 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
• G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

References

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.:

as HTML HTML with abstract plain text plain text with abstract BibTeX RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite) ReDIF in new window

1. Abowd, John M, 1989. "The Effect of Wage Bargains on the Stock Market Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 774-800, September.
2. Bruce A. Rayton, 1996. "Rent-Sharing or Incentives? Estimating the Residual Claim of Average Employees," Labor and Demography 9603002, EconWPA, revised 09 Sep 1996.
   
   • Bruce Rayton, 1997. "Rent-sharing or incentives? Estimating the residual claim of average employees," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 4(12), pages 725-728.
3. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Watts, Ross L., 1992. "The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-292, December.
   
   • Smith, C.W. & Watts, R.L., 1992. "The Investment Oppotunity set and Corporate Financing, Dividend and Compensation Policies," Papers 92-02, Rochester, Business - Financial Research and Policy Studies.
4. Ichniowski, Casey & Shaw, Kathryn & Prennushi, Giovanna, 1997. "The Effects of Human Resource Management Practices on Productivity: A Study of Steel Finishing Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 291-313, June.
5. Bruce A. Rayton & Jonathan S. Seaton, 1999. "The size of employee stakeholding in large UK corporations," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(5), pages 259-266.
   
   • Bruce A. Rayton & Jonathan S. Seaton, 1996. "The Size of Employee Stakeholding in Large UK Corporations," Labor and Demography 9612001, EconWPA, revised 28 Jan 1999.
   • Bruce A Rayton & Jonathan S Seaton, . "The Size of Employee Stakeholding in Large UK Corporation," Working Papers 97/2, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, The Nottingham Trent University.
6. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1994. "The Wage Policy of a Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 921-55, November.
7. Bhargava, Sandeep, 1994. "Profit-Sharing and the Financial Performance of Companies: Evidence from U.K. Panel Data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(426), pages 1044-56, September.
8. Douglas L. Kruse, 1993. "Profit Sharing: Does It Make a Difference?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number ps, Septiembr.
9. Jensen, M.C. & Murphy, K.J., 1988. "Performance Pay And Top Management Incentives," Papers 88-04, Rochester, Business - Managerial Economics Research Center.
   
   • Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-64, April.
10. Nalbantian, Haig R & Schotter, Andrew, 1997. "Productivity under Group Incentives: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 314-41, June.
    
    • Nalbantian, Haig & Schotter, Andrew, 1994. "Productivity Under Group Incentives: An Experimental Study," Working Papers 94-04, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
11. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919, November.
12. Eggertsson,Thrainn, 1990. "Economic Behavior and Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521348911.

Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as HTML HTML with abstract plain text plain text with abstract BibTeX RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite) ReDIF in new window

Cited by:

1. Amit Saini & Kelly Martin, 2009. "Strategic Risk-Taking Propensity: The Role of Ethical Climate and Marketing Output Control," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(4), pages 593-606, December.
2. Vicente Cuñat & Maria Guadalupe, 2005. "How Does Product Market Competition Shape Incentive Contracts?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 1058-1082, 09.
   
   • Vicente Cuñat & María Guadalupe, 2005. "How Does Product Market Competition Shape Incentive Contracts?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0687, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
3. Christine Marsal, 2006. "La cohérence dans la mobilisation du capital humain:une illustration de la théorie de l’architecture organisationnelle dans les banques de réseau," Working Papers FARGO 1060501, Université de Bourgogne - Leg (laboratoire d'économie et de gestion)/Fargo (Research center in Finance,organizational ARchitecture and GOvernance).
4. Lars Calmfors & Giancarlo Corsetti & Seppo Honkapohja & John Kay & Willi Leibfritz & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Xavier Vives, 2004. "Pay-setting Systems in Europe: On-going Development and Possible Reforms," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo Group Munich, vol. 0, pages 61-83, October.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:9607001

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (EconWPA).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

---

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.

Privacy Legal