This paper studies career concerns -- concerns about the effects of current performance on future compensation -- and describes how optimal incentive contracts are affected when career concerns are taken into account. Career concerns arise frequently: they occur whenever the market uses a worker's current output to update its belief about the worker's ability and competition then forces future wages (or wage contracts) to reflect these updated beliefs. Career concerns are stronger when a worker is further from retirement, because a longer prospective career increases the return to changing the market's belief. In the presence of career concerns, the optimal compensation contract optimizes total incentives -- the combination of the implicit incentives from career concerns and the explicit incentives from the compensation contract. Thus, the explicit incentives from the optimal compensation contract should be strongest when a worker is close to retirement. We find empirical support for this prediction in the relation between chief-executive compensation and stock-market performance.
Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, now in its fourteenth edition, continues to be the leading text for one-semester courses in labor economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It offers a thorough overview of the modern theory of labor market behavior and reveals how this theory is used to analyze public policy. Designed for students who may not have extensive backgrounds in economics, the text balances theoretical coverage with examples of practical applications that allow students to see concepts in action. The authors believe that showing students the social implications of the concepts discussed in the course will enhance their motivation to learn. Consequently, this text presents numerous examples of policy decisions that have been affected by the ever-shifting labor market. This new edition continues to offer the following: a balance of relevant, contemporary examples coverage of the current economic climate an introduction to basic methodological techniques and problems tools for review and further study This fourteenth edition presents updated data throughout and a wealth of new examples, such as the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, gig work, nudges, monopsony power in the technology industry, and the effect of machine learning on inequality. Supplementary materials for students and instructors are available on the book’s companion website.
For one-semester courses in labor economics at the undergraduate and graduate levels, this book provides an overview of labor market behavior that emphasizes how theory drives public policy. Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, Twelfth Edition gives students a thorough overview of the modern theory of labor market behavior, and reveals how this theory is used to analyze public policy. Designed for students who may not have extensive backgrounds in economics, the text balances theoretical coverage with examples of practical applications that allow students to see concepts in action. Experienced educators for nearly four decades, co-authors Ronald Ehrenberg and Robert Smith believe that showing students the social implications of the concepts discussed in the course will enhance their motivation to learn. As such, the text presents numerous examples of policy decisions that have been affected by the ever-shifting labor market. This text provides a better teaching and learning experience for you and your students. It will help you to: Demonstrate concepts through relevant, contemporary examples: Concepts are brought to life through analysis of hot-button issues such as immigration and return on investment in education. Address the Great Recession of 2008: Coverage of the current economic climate helps students place course material in a relevant context. Help students understand scientific methodology: The text introduces basic methodological techniques and problems, which are essential to understanding the field. Provide tools for review and further study: A series of helpful in-text features highlights important concepts and helps students review what they have learned.
This text explains how firms can improve the performance of the people on whom they depend - workers, customers, suppliers, stockholders - by managing the incentives system better. The author argues that incentives are not just a matter of money, but a range of factors which provide a set of rewards that encourage people to work towards a common goal of organizational success.
A graduate textbook on microeconomics, covering decision theory, game theory, and the foundations of contract theory, with a unique focus on the empirical. This graduate-level text on microeconomics, covering such topics as decision theory, game theory, bargaining theory, contract theory, trade under asymmetric information, and relational contract theory, is unique in its emphasis on the interplay between theory and evidence. It reviews the microeconomic theory of exchange “from the ground up,” aiming to produce a set of models and hypotheses amenable to empirical exploration, with particular focus on models that are useful for the study of contracts, institutions, and organizations. It explores research that extends price theory to the exchange of commodities when markets are incomplete, discussing recent developments in the field. Topics covered include the relationship between theory and evidence; decision theory as it is used in contract theory and institutional design; game theory; axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory; agency theory and the class of models that are considered to constitute contract theory, with discussions of moral hazard and trade with asymmetric information; and the theory of relational contracts. The final chapter offers a nontechnical review that provides a guide to which model is the most appropriate for a particular application. End-of-chapter exercises help students expand their understanding of the material, and an appendix provides brief introduction to optimization theory and the welfare theorem of general equilibrium theory. Students are assumed to be familiar with general equilibrium theory and basic constrained optimization theory.
This dissertation comprises three papers on the governance of corporate risk: 1. The first paper investigates the role of organizational structures aimed at monitoring corporate risk. Proponents of risk-related governance structures, such as risk committees or Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programs, assert that risk monitoring adds value by ensuring that corporate risks are managed. An alternative view is that such governance structures are nothing more than window-dressing created in response to regulatory or public pressure. Consistent with the former view, I find that, in the period between 2000 and 2006, firms with more observable risk oversight structures exhibit lower equity and credit risk than firms with fewer or no observable risk oversight structures. I also provide evidence that firms with more observable risk oversight structures experienced higher returns during the worst days of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and were less susceptible to market fluctuations than firms with fewer or no observable risk oversight structures. Finally, I find that firms without observable risk oversight structures experienced higher abnormal returns to recent legislative events relating to risk management than firms with observable risk oversight structures. 2. The most common empirical measure of managerial risk-taking incentives is equity portfolio vega (Vega), which is measured as the dollar change in a manager's equity portfolio for a 0.01 change in the standard deviation of stock returns. However, Vega exhibits at least three undesirable features. First, Vega is expressed as a dollar change. This implicitly assumes that managers with identical Vega have the same incentives regardless of differences in their total equity and other wealth. Second, the small change in the standard deviation of returns used to calculate Vega (i.e., 0.01) yields a very local approximation of managerial risk-taking incentives. If an executive's expected payoff is highly nonlinear over the range of potential stock price and volatility outcomes, a local measure of incentives is unlikely to provide a valid assessment of managerial incentives. Third, Vega is measured as the partial derivative of the manager's equity portfolio with respect to return volatility. This computation does not consider that this partial derivative also varies with changes in stock price. The second paper develops and tests a new measure of managerial risk-taking equity incentives that adjusts for differences in managerial wealth, considers more global changes in price and volatility, and explicitly considers the impact of stock price and volatility changes. We find that our new measure exhibits higher explanatory power and is more robust to model specification than Vegafor explaining a wide range of measures of risk-taking behavior. 3. The third paper examines the relation between shareholder monitoring and managerial risk-taking incentives. We develop a stylized model to show that shareholder monitoring mitigates the effect of contractual risk-taking incentives on the manager's actions. Consistent with the model, we find empirically that the positive association between the CEO's contractual risk-taking incentives and risk-taking behavior decreases with the level of shareholder monitoring. Furthermore, consistent with the board anticipating and optimally responding to shareholder monitoring, boards of firms exposed to more intense monitoring design compensation contracts that provide higher incentives to take risks. Overall, our results suggest that, when evaluating risk-taking incentives provided by a compensation contract, it is important to account for the firm's monitoring environment.
The pharmaceutical industry is one of today’s most dynamic and complex industries, involving commercialization of cutting-edge scientific research, a huge web of stakeholders (from investors to doctors), multi-stage supply chains, fierce competition in the race to market, and a challenging regulatory environment. The stakes are high, with each new product raising the prospect of spectacular success—or failure. Worldwide revenues are approaching $1 trillion; in the U.S. alone, marketing for pharmaceutical products is, itself, a multi-billion dollar industry. In this volume, the editors showcase contributions from experts around the world to capture the state of the art in research, analysis, and practice, and covering the full spectrum of topics relating to innovation and marketing, including R&D, promotion, pricing, branding, competitive strategy, and portfolio management. Chapters include such features as: · An extensive literature review, including coverage of research from fields other than marketing · an overview of how practitioners have addressed the topic · introduction of relevant analytical tools, such as statistics and ethnographic studies · suggestions for further research by scholars and students The result is a comprehensive, state-of-the-art resource that will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, alike.
Volume 17 of Advances in Financial Economics, entitled "Corporate Governance in the US and Global Settings" will provide further insights into corporate governance in the US & global economic and financial environment by publishing international, within-country and cross-country comparative studies.
Since the mid-1980s two crises have overtaken governance of the American corporation - the loss of competitiveness in the 1980s and the loss of investor trust in financial management in the late 1990s. This book proposes specific changes in conduct to resolve these crises, principally by putting the board of directors in charge of management. This detailed analysis and critique of performance of current governance specifies reforms that will make that possible. The reforms are tightly connected to the authors' analysis of the causes of breakdowns in the largest corporations in which management has been subject to criminal and civil investigation.
In 2003, the National Commission on the Public Service, chaired by Paul Volcker, issued a report detailing problems within the federal government today and recommending changes in its organization, leadership, and operations. This book suggests practical ways to implement the recommendations and defines a research agenda for the future. Thirteen essays address the primary problem areas identified by the Volcker Commission, and the commission report itself is included.
