Optimal Promotion Policies with the Looking-Glass Effect

Junichiro Ishida

Journal of Labor Economics, 2006, vol. 24, issue 4, 857-878

Abstract: This article considers a model where the agent is uncertain about his innate ability and instead makes an inference from others' (namely, the principal's) perception, as often emphasized in the psychology literature. When the principal has superior knowledge about the agent's productivity than the agent himself, the principal has an incentive to use promotions strategically to boost the agent's self-confidence. Within this framework the optimal promotion policy depends not only on the agent's current expected ability type but also on the history of his previous job assignments. We use this fact to explain why we rarely observe demotions in organizations.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/506488 main text (application/pdf)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:24:y:2006:i:4:p:857-878

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().