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On the Trade-off between Efficiency in Job Assignment and Turnover: The Role of Breakup Fees

Author

Listed:
  • Arijit Mukherjee
  • Lu�s Vasconcelos

Abstract

We highlight a novel trade-off with the use of breakup fees in employment contracts. Under asymmetric learning about workers’ productivity, the market takes job assignments (or “promotions”) as a signal of quality and bids up the wages of a promoted worker, leading to inefficiently few promotions (Waldman, M. 1984. “Job Assignments, Signalling, and Efficiency” 15 RAND Journal of Economics 255–67). Breakup fees can mitigate such inefficiencies by shielding the firm from labor-market competition, but they reduce turnover efficiency when there are firm-specific matching gains. We show that it is optimal to use breakup fees if and only if the difference between the worker’s expected productivity in the pre- and post-promotion jobs is small. Also, the relationship between the optimality of breakup fees and the importance of firm-specific human capital is more nuanced than what the extant literature may suggest.

Suggested Citation

  • Arijit Mukherjee & Lu�s Vasconcelos, 2018. "On the Trade-off between Efficiency in Job Assignment and Turnover: The Role of Breakup Fees," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(2), pages 230-271.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jleorg:v:34:y:2018:i:2:p:230-271.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jleo/ewy003
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Luca Picariello, 2019. "Promotions and Training: Do Competitive Firms Set the Bar too High?," CSEF Working Papers 552, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    2. Ekinci, Emre, 2022. "Employee entrepreneurship and signaling role of corporate venturing decisions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Inés Macho-Stadler & David Pérez-Castrillo, 2021. "Agency theory meets matching theory," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 1-33, March.
    4. Ori Zax, 2020. "Human capital acquisition as a competitive response to the promotion distortion," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 496-509, July.
    5. Simon Dato & Andreas Grunewald & Matthias Kräkel, 2021. "Worker visibility and firms' retention policies," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 168-202, February.
    6. Chen Cohen & Ori Zax, 2022. "Human capital acquisition as a signaling device in promotion competition," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(2), pages 550-566, May.
    7. David Wettstein & Ori Zax, 2018. "Promotion Policies of Workers who Observe their Ability," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(4), pages 2509-2514.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

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