|
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Steven Ongena (University of Zurich - Department of Banking and Finance; Swiss Finance Institute; KU Leuven; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)); Tanseli Savaser (Vassar College - Department of Economics); Elif Sisli Ciamarra (Stonehill College) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether the relationship between managerial risk-taking incentives and bank risk is sensitive to the underlying macroeconomic conditions. We find that risk-taking incentives provided to bank executives are associated with higher bank riskiness during economic downturns. We attribute this finding to the increase in moral hazard during macroeconomic downturns when the perceived probability of future bailouts and government guarantees rises. This association is particularly strong for larger banks, banks that maintain lower capital ratios and banks that are managed by more powerful CEOs. Our findings highlight the importance of the interaction between managerial incentives and the macroeconomic environment. Boards and regulators may find it useful to consider the countercyclical nature of the relationship between risk-taking incentives and bank riskiness when designing managerial compensation. |
| Keywords: | bank risk; executive compensation; equity-based compensation; macroeconomy |
| JEL: | G01 G2 G3 M52 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2075&r=all |
| By: | Daniel Haanwinckel (University of Chicago); Rodrigo R. Soares (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | We develop a search model of informal labor markets with worker and firm heterogeneity, intra-firm bargaining with imperfect substitutability across types of workers, and a comprehensive set of labor regulations, including minimum wage. Stylized facts associated with the informal sector, such as smaller firms and lower wages, emerge endogenously as firms and workers decide whether to comply with regulations. Imperfect substitutability across types of workers, decreasing returns to scale, and convex vacancy-posting costs enable the model to reproduce empirical patterns incompatible with existing frameworks in the literature: the presence of skilled and unskilled workers in the formal and informal sectors, the rising share of skilled workers by firm size, the declining formal wage premium by skill, and the rising firm-size wage premium by skill. These features also allow us to analyze the equilibrium responses to changes in the demand and supply of different types of labor. We estimate the model using Brazilian data and show that it reproduces various margins of labor market changes observed between 2003 and 2012. The change in the composition of the labor force appears as the main driving force behind the reduction in informality. We illustrate the use of the model for policy analysis by assessing the effectiveness of a progressive payroll tax in reducing informality. |
| Keywords: | informality, labor market, search, minimum wage, compensating differentials, Brazil |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J46 J64 O17 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2020-45&r=all |
| By: | Kampkötter, Patrick (University of Tübingen); Petters, Lea (University of Cologne); Sliwka, Dirk (University of Cologne) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of employees' identification to the employer for wage growth. We first show in a formal model that identification implies countervailing effects: Employees with higher identification are more valuable as they exert higher efforts, but have weaker bargaining positions, and less outside options as they search less. Analyzing a novel representative panel dataset, we find that stronger identification is associated with less job search and turnover. Workers that have higher identification exhibit significantly lower wage growth. In line with the model, this pattern tends to be reversed conditional on having obtained an external offer. |
| Keywords: | wage, affective commitment, identity, turnover, job search |
| JEL: | J31 M50 M52 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13624&r=all |
| By: | Richard Blundell (University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies); Monica Costa Dias (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Porto); David Goll (University College London and Institute for Fiscal Studies); Costas Meghir (Cowles Foundation, Yale University, NBER, IZA, CEPR, and Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the UK-BHPS. Based on a lifecycle model and using tax and welfare benefit reforms as a source of exogenous variation we evaluate the role of formal training and experience in defining the evolution of wages and employment careers, conditional on education. Training is potentially important in compensating for the e?ects of children, especially for women who left education after completing high school, but does not fundamentally change the wage gap resulting from labor market interruptions following child birth. |
| Keywords: | Workplace training, On the job training, Female labor supply, Gender wage differentials, Human capital, Fertility and the gender wage gap, Lifecycle labor supply |
| JEL: | E24 H24 I26 I28 J16 J22 J24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2174r&r=all |
| By: | Garcia, Harrison |
| Abstract: | College students are expected to develop time management skills to minimize procrastination and best perform in the tasks they face during education, but many do not implement time management practices and nearly all have trouble focusing on and completing assignments. Contemporary work and theory suggest that time management does not have an effect on task performance, but it can improve self-efficacy, which does correlate with task performance. A time management tool that also worked to improve self-efficacy was thus used to see if increasing self-efficacy could decrease time spent on tasks, i.e., task performance. Analysis of data collected from time and mood tracking before and after intervention demonstrated a significant decrease in time spent working (p<0.001) and significant increases in actual and in perceived productivity (p=0.039 and p=0.009 respectively). The results suggest that implementing practices to improve time management and self-efficacy may increase task performance, but further research must be done to control for specific factors that may confound this effect. |
| Date: | 2020–08–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:z8mwn&r=all |
| By: | Benjamin Bennett; Isil Erel; Léa H. Stern; Zexi Wang |
| Abstract: | We explore how lowering labor market frictions for female workers affects corporate performance. Using the staggered adoption of state-level Paid Family Leave acts, we provide causal evidence on the value created by relieving frictions to accessing female talent, for private and public firms. Reduced turnover and rising female leadership are potential mechanisms that contribute to performance gains. Across specifications, our estimates indicate that treated establishments’ productivity increases between 4% and 5% relative to neighbor control establishments. The treatment effect is larger when workers are in less religious counties and in those with more women of childbearing age. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J24 J32 J78 M14 M51 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27788&r=all |
| By: | Gaggero, Alessio (University of Nottingham); Tommasi, Denni (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | The link between time-of-day and productivity on cognitive tasks is crucial to understand workplace efficiency and welfare. We study the performance of University students taking at most one exam per day in the final two weeks of the semester. Exams are scheduled at different time-of-day in a quasirandom fashion. We find that peak performance occurs around lunchtime (1.30pm), as compared to morning (9am) or late afternoon (4.30pm). This inverse-U shape relationship between time-of-day and performance (i) is not driven by stress or fatigue, (ii) is consistent with the idea that cognitive functioning is an important determinant of productivity and (iii) implies that efficiency gains of up to 0.14 standard deviations can be achieved through simple re-arrangements of the time of exams. While researchers have shown that biological factors influence changes in productivity between day and night shifts, we establish that such relationship is also important within a standard day-light shift. A simple back of the envelope calculation applied to an external context that is likely to benefit from our results, elective surgeries, suggests that a different sorting of the cognitive tasks performed by surgeons may lead to an increase in the number of patients saved. |
| Keywords: | time-of-day, cognitive tasks, productivity, efficiency gains, circadian rhythm |
| JEL: | I20 I24 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13657&r=all |
| By: | Garrett, Daniel F. |
| Abstract: | In the context of a canonical agency model, we study the payo implications of introducing optimally-structured incentives. We do so from the perspective of an analyst who does not know the agent's preferences for responding to incentives, but does knowthat the principal knows them. We provide, in particular, tight bounds on the principal's expected benet from optimal incentive contracting across feasible values of the agent's expected rents. We thus show how economically relevant predictions can be made robustly given ignorance of a key primitive. |
| Keywords: | asymmetric information, mechanism design, robustness, procurement |
| JEL: | D82 |
| Date: | 2020–09–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:124664&r=all |
| By: | Barth, Erling (Institute for Social Research, Oslo); Roed, Marianne (Institute for Social Research, Oslo); Schone, Pal (Institute for Social Research, Oslo); Umblijs, Janis (Institute for Social Research, Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Using novel matched employer-employee register data with firm-level information on the introduction of industrial robots, this paper analysis the impact of robots on the wages of workers in the manufacturing sector. The results show that industrial robots increase wages for high-skilled workers relative to low-skilled workers, hence robots increases the skill-premium within firms. Furthermore, we find that employees in managerial positions benefit more from robotisation than those in STEM or professional occupations. Overall, our results suggest that the introduction of industrial robots has a positive effect on the average wages of manufacturing workers in Norway. |
| Keywords: | automation, robotisation, labour economics, wages, technological change |
| JEL: | J01 J08 O33 E24 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13605&r=all |
| By: | Schneider, Sebastian (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods); Sutter, Matthias (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) |
| Abstract: | We use a novel method to elicit and measure higher order risk preferences (prudence and temperance) in an experiment with 658 adolescents. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that higher order risk preferences particularly prudence are strongly related to adolescents' field behavior, including their financial decision making, eco-friendly behavior, and health status, including addictive behavior. Most importantly, we show that dropping prudence and temperance from the analysis of students' field behavior would yield largely misleading conclusions about the relation of risk aversion to these domains of field behavior. Thus our paper puts previous work that ignored higher order risk preferences into an encompassing perspective and claries which orders of risk preferences can help understand field behavior of adolescents. |
| Keywords: | higher order risk preferences, prudence, temperance, risk aversion, field behavior, adolescents, health, addictive behavior, smartphone addiction, experiment |
| JEL: | C93 D81 D91 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13646&r=all |
| By: | Ugur, Mehmet (University of Greenwich); Vivarelli, Marco (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | We review the theoretical underpinnings and the empirical findings of the literature that investigates the effects of innovation on firm survival and firm productivity, which constitute the two main channels through which innovation drives growth. We aim to contribute to the ongoing debate along three paths. First, we discuss the extent to which the theoretical perspectives that inform the empirical models allow for heterogeneity in the effects of R&D/innovation on firm survival and productivity. Secondly, we draw attention to recent modeling and estimation effort that reveals novel sources of heterogeneity, non-linearity and volatility in the gains from R&D/innovation, particularly in terms of its effects on firm survival and productivity. Our third contribution is to link our findings with those from prior reviews to demonstrate how the state of the art is evolving and with what implications for future research. |
| Keywords: | innovation, R&D, survival, productivity |
| JEL: | O30 O33 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13654&r=all |