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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Bellemare, Charles (Université Laval); Shearer, Bruce S. (Université Laval) |
| Abstract: | We present results from a field experiment designed to measure the importance of managerial commitment to a contract within a firm that pays its workers piece rates. In the tree planting industry the piece rate paid to workers is determined as a function of the difficulty of the terrain to be planted. During the experiment, workers began planting a terrain at a trial piece rate, but were told this rate would be revised upwards if, after a few work days, average productivity was below that observed on a similar (control) terrain on which the firm had committed to the contract. Our results suggest that worker productivity was 20% to 40% lower in the absence of commitment. The reduction was less pronounced when workers had less time to benefit from any subsequent increase in the piece rate. This provides support for models of worker turnover as a means of overcoming ratchet effects. |
| Keywords: | ratchet effect, piece rates, incentive contracts, field experiments |
| JEL: | J33 M52 C93 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8214&r=hrm |
| By: | Fabio Lamantia; Mario Pezzino |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:sespap:1408&r=hrm |
| By: | Vellore Arthi (Department of History) |
| Abstract: | I use variation in childhood exposure to the Dust Bowl, an environmental shock to health and income, as a natural experiment to explain variation in adult human capital. I find that the Dust Bowl produced significant adverse impacts in later life, especially when exposure was in utero, increasing rates of poverty and disability, and decreasing rates of fertility and college completion. Dependence on agriculture exacerbates these effects, suggesting that the Dust Bowl was most damaging via the destruction of farming livelihoods. This collapse of farm incomes, however, had the positive effect of reducing demand for child farm labor and thus decreasing the opportunity costs of secondary schooling, as evidenced by increases in high school completion amongst the exposed. |
| Keywords: | Dust Bowl, environmental shock, human capital formation, early life health |
| Date: | 2014–04–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_129&r=hrm |