 The Peter Principle: Promotions and Declining ProductivityNo 8094, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc Abstract: Many have observed that individuals perform worse after having received a promotion. The most famous statement of the idea is the Peter Principle, which states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence. There are a number of possible explanations. Two are explored. The most traditional is that the prospect of promotion provides incentives which vanish after the promotion has been granted; thus, tenured faculty slack off. Another is that output as a statistical matter is expected to fall. Being promoted is evidence that a standard has been met. Regression to the mean implies that future productivity will decline on average. Firms optimally account for the regression bias in making promotion decisions, but the effect is never eliminated. Both explanations are analyzed. The statistical point always holds; the slacking off story holds only under certain compensation structures. JEL-codes: J00 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published as Edward P. Lazear, 2004. "The Peter Principle: A Theory of Decline," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages S141-S163, February. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8094 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from 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. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.