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Incentives and Careers in Organizations

Robert Gibbons

No 5705, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper surveys two related pieces of the labor-economics literature: incentive pay and careers in organizations. In the discussion of incentives, I first summarize theory and evidence related to the classic agency model, which emphasizes the tradeoff between insurance and incentives. I then offer econometric and case-study evidence suggesting that this classic model ignores several crucial issues and sketch new models that begin to analyze these issues. In the discussion of careers in organizations, I begin by summarizing evidence on wages and positions using panel data within firms. This evidence is sparse and far-flung (drawn from industrial relations, organizational behavior, and sociology, as well as from labor economics); I identify ten basic questions that merit more systematic investigation. Turning to theory, I describe building-block models that address one or a few pieces of evidence, but focus on more recent models that address broad patterns of evidence.

JEL-codes: D23 J41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996-08
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Published as Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications, ed. D.Kreps and K. Wallis, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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