nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2024‒06‒24
six papers chosen by
Patrick Kampkötter, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen


  1. The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences By Iacopo Morchio; Christian Moser
  2. Multi-rater Performance Evaluations and Incentives By Axel Ockenfels; Dirk Sliwka; Peter Werner
  3. Monitoring and Prudence By Beltrametti, Luca; Cardullo, Gabriele
  4. The Adoption of ChatGPT By Humlum, Anders; Vestergaard, Emilie
  5. Individual versus Team Production with Social Preferences By Banerjee, Swapnendu; Chakraborty, Somenath
  6. Relative performance evaluation and strategic peer-harming disclosures By Bloomfield, Matthew J.; Heinle, Mirko; Timmermans, Oscar

  1. By: Iacopo Morchio; Christian Moser
    Abstract: Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil, we document a large gender pay gap due to women working at lower-paying employers with better nonpay attributes. To interpret these facts, we develop an equilibrium search model with endogenous firm pay, amenities, and hiring. We provide a constructive proof of identification of all model parameters. The estimated model suggests that amenities are important for both men and women, that compensating differentials explain half of the gender pay gap, and that there are significant output and welfare gains from eliminating gender differences. However, equal-treatment policies fail to achieve those gains.
    JEL: E24 J16 J31 J32
    Date: 2024–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32408&r=
  2. By: Axel Ockenfels (University of Cologne & Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn); Dirk Sliwka (University of Cologne, IZA and cesIfo); Peter Werner (Maastricht University)
    Abstract: We compare evaluations of employee performance by individuals and groups of supervisors, analyzing a formal model and running a laboratory experiment. The model predicts that multi-rater evaluations are more precise than single-rater evaluations if groups rationally aggregate their signals about employee performance. Our controlled laboratory experiment confirms this prediction and finds evidence that this can indeed be attributed to accurate information processing in the group. Moreover, when employee compensation depends on evaluations, multi-rater evaluations tend to be associated with higher performance.
    Keywords: Performance appraisal, calibration panels, group decision-making, real effort, incentives
    JEL: J33 M52
    Date: 2024–05
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:307&r=
  3. By: Beltrametti, Luca (University of Genova); Cardullo, Gabriele (University of Genova)
    Abstract: We study the impact of monitoring in a workplace context where both firms and employees are unable to perfectly observe the individual worker contribution to total output. Therefore, in our setting monitoring is not aimed at reducing information asymmetries but still affects effort and output. We show that if individuals are prudent, firms call for less monitoring. Workers' stance towards monitoring is ambiguous and depends on risk aversion and the disutility of effort. Our "prudence effect" offers some clues for a more nuanced interpretation of the attitudes towards monitoring by firms and workers.
    Keywords: monitoring, prudence, workers' effort
    JEL: D81 J24 M52
    Date: 2024–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17000&r=
  4. By: Humlum, Anders (University of Chicago Booth School of Business); Vestergaard, Emilie (University of Copenhagen)
    Abstract: We study the adoption of ChatGPT, the icon of Generative AI, using a large-scale survey experiment linked to comprehensive register data in Denmark. Surveying 100, 000 workers from 11 exposed occupations, we document ChatGPT is pervasive: half of workers have used it, with younger, less experienced, higher-achieving, and especially male workers leading the curve. Why have some workers adopted ChatGPT, and others not? Workers see a substantial productivity potential in ChatGPT but are often hindered by employer restrictions and required training. Informing workers about expert assessments of ChatGPT shifts workers' beliefs and intentions but has limited impacts on actual adoption.
    Keywords: technology adoption, labor productivity
    JEL: J24 O33
    Date: 2024–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16992&r=
  5. By: Banerjee, Swapnendu; Chakraborty, Somenath
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of social preferences on the choice between individual production and team production. An inequity-averse principal can hire a single or a team of two agents to work on a single project. The agents are inequity-averse with respect to the principal. In this framework we show that even without ‘team synergy’ a moderately inequity-averse principal can opt for team production. Thus we provide an additional rationale for the empirically observed prevalence of team based production in terms of the possible existence of social preferences. Keeping social preferences fixed, we show that team production is likely in long-term employment relationships compared to short-run relationships when the principal is moderately inequity-averse. For sufficiently inequity-averse principal the incentive for team production remains the same across short-term and long-term relationships.
    Keywords: Other regarding preferences, inequity aversion, team contracts, Synergy
    JEL: D21 D86 M52
    Date: 2022–12–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:120996&r=
  6. By: Bloomfield, Matthew J.; Heinle, Mirko; Timmermans, Oscar
    Abstract: Many firms use relative stock performance to evaluate and incentivize their CEOs. We document that such firms routinely disclose information that harms their peers' stock prices, and sometimes explicitly mention the harmed peers, by name, in these disclosures. Consistent with deliberate sabotage, peer-harming disclosures appear to be aimed at peers whose stock price depressions are most likely to benefit the disclosing firms' CEOs. The pricing effect of these disclosures does not reverse, suggesting that the disclosures contain legitimate information regarding peers' prospects. In sum, our results suggest that relative performance evaluation in CEO pay motivates CEOs to internalize the externalities of their disclosures, and strategically disclose information that harms peers' stock prices, in order to improve their firms' relative standing within their peer group.
    Keywords: relative performance evaluation; peer-harming actions; voluntary disclosure; sabotage; stock returns; capital markets
    JEL: G12 G14 J33 M41
    Date: 2024–05–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:122509&r=

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