Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts

Edward Lazear and Sherwin Rosen

No 401, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper analyzes compensation schemes which pay according to an individual's ordinal rank in an organization rather than his output level. When workers are risk neutral, it is shown that wages based upon rank induce the same efficient allocation of resources as an incentive reward scheme based on individual output levels. Under some circumstances, risk-averse workers actually prefer to be paid on the basis of rank. In addition, if workers are heterogeneous inability, low-quality workers attempt to contaminate high-quality firms, resulting in adverse selection. However, if ability is known in advance, a competitive handicapping structure exists which allows all workers to compete efficiently in the same organization.

Date: 1979-11
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (330)

Published as Lazear, Edward P. and Rosen, Sherwin. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts." Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 89, No. 5, (October 1981), pp. 841-864.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0401.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:0401

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w0401

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().