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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Maré David (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Richard Fabling (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | We examine the contribution to ethnic earnings gaps of differences in the firms where different ethnic groups work. We use linked employer-employee data to estimate worker and firm pay premiums (fixed effects), adapting existing methods to deal with multiple-response ethnicities and weighting. The sorting of workers across firms contributes 10-26 percent of within-ethnicity gender gaps but affects average earnings for men or women within ethnic groups by less than 1 percent, in the face of average ethnic earnings gaps of up to 14 percent. We conclude that within-firm earnings differences are the dominant source of ethnic earnings gaps. |
| Keywords: | Earnings; ethnicity; sorting; two-way fixed effects; linked employer employee data |
| JEL: | J30 J15 J71 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:25_07 |
| By: | Hanna Brosch; Philipp Lergetporer; Florian Schoner |
| Abstract: | Firm training is key to meeting changing skill demands, yet little is known about the role of workers’ beliefs in shaping training participation. In a survey of 3, 701 workers in Germany, we document that they expect substantial returns to firm training – both in terms of earnings and non-pecuniary outcomes such as promotion chances, job task complexity, or enjoyment. These beliefs predict actual and intended training participation. Lower-skilled workers anticipate smaller non-pecuniary returns, partly explaining their lower uptake. An information treatment addressing return beliefs significantly increases training intentions among lower-skilled workers, suggesting that targeting beliefs may help narrow participation gaps between lower- and higher-skilled workers. |
| Keywords: | beliefs, firm training, skill mismatch, human capital, survey |
| JEL: | J24 J31 D83 I21 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12183 |
| By: | Mehrzad B. Baktash; John S. Heywood; Uwe Jirjahn |
| Abstract: | Using German survey data, we show conflicting influences of performance pay on overall life satisfaction. The overall influence reflects a strong positive influence through domains of life satisfaction associated with the job (job satisfaction, individual earnings satisfaction and household earning satisfaction) and a strong negative influence through domains away from the job (health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction and family life satisfaction). This trade-off between work and home generalizes and helps explain many previous studies examining much more specific consequences of performance pay. Finally, controlling for the mediating role of the domains, the direct influence on life satisfaction is positive for women and insignificantly different from zero for men. |
| Keywords: | Performance Pay, Life Satisfaction, Well-Being, Satisfaction Domains, Gender |
| JEL: | D10 J22 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:202509 |
| By: | Martin, Melissa; Timmermans, Oscar |
| Abstract: | Relative performance evaluation has become an increasingly common component of executive compensation contracts. We study how these incentive plans relate to corporate disclosure and predict that they introduce an incremental disclosure cost. This cost arises because disclosures can help competitors make better investment decisions, enhancing their performance and thereby reducing managers’ expected compensation. Consistent with this prediction, we find a negative association between relative performance plans and voluntary, value-relevant management forecasts, alongside a positive association with redactions in mandatory filings. This pattern is specific to plans with accounting-based metrics and absent for plans with price-based metrics. The results for price-based metrics are consistent with the idea that the incentive to reduce information asymmetry with market participants outweighs disclosure costs in these plans. The results for accounting-based metrics are more pronounced for managers whose plans provide stronger incentives and for those whose forecasts provide meaningful information spillovers to peers. Overall, this paper contributes the idea that relative performance plans can impose disclosure costs, thereby shedding light on contracting mechanisms that discourage disclosure—a less well-understood aspect of disclosure research. |
| Keywords: | information disclosure; capital markets; relative performance evaluation; proprietary costs |
| JEL: | D82 J33 L10 M12 |
| Date: | 2025–09–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127506 |
| By: | R. Maria del Rio-Chanona; Ekkehard Ernst; Rossana Merola; Daniel Samaan; Ole Teutloff |
| Abstract: | Generative AI is altering work processes, task composition, and organizational design, yet its effects on employment and the macroeconomy remain unresolved. In this review, we synthesize theory and empirical evidence at three levels. First, we trace the evolution from aggregate production frameworks to task- and expertise-based models. Second, we quantitatively review and compare (ex-ante) AI exposure measures of occupations from multiple studies and find convergence towards high-wage jobs. Third, we assemble ex-post evidence of AI's impact on employment from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), field experiments, and digital trace data (e.g., online labor platforms, software repositories), complemented by partial coverage of surveys. Across the reviewed studies, productivity gains are sizable but context-dependent: on the order of 20 to 60 percent in controlled RCTs, and 15 to 30 percent in field experiments. Novice workers tend to benefit more from LLMs in simple tasks. Across complex tasks, evidence is mixed on whether low or high-skilled workers benefit more. Digital trace data show substitution between humans and machines in writing and translation alongside rising demand for AI, with mild evidence of declining demand for novice workers. A more substantial decrease in demand for novice jobs across AI complementary work emerges from recent studies using surveys, platform payment records, or administrative data. Research gaps include the focus on simple tasks in experiments, the limited diversity of LLMs studied, and technology-centric AI exposure measures that overlook adoption dynamics and whether exposure translates into substitution, productivity gains, erode or increase expertise. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.15265 |
| By: | Li, Bingbing (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University); Förster, Manuel (Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University) |
| Abstract: | In our principal-agent model, the principal can repeatedly delegate authority to an agent with uncertain preferences or take the decisions himself. The principal learns the state at the end of each period and then updates his belief about the agent’s bias based on the decision implemented if he delegated authority. We demonstrate that equilibria are characterized by an “imitation” interval of agent types (biases) who mimic less biased types in order to be retained. Interestingly, the principal generally benefits from the agent’s imitation compared to a benchmark. Furthermore, comparative statics reveal that, surprisingly, the principal may be worse off with better information. Finally, an extension to finitely many periods shows that the imitation interval gradually shifts, such that agent types within the interval imitate less biased types. |
| Keywords: | Delegation, preference uncertainty, private information, dynamic game, organizational design |
| Date: | 2025–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bie:wpaper:753 |
| By: | Richard Audoly; Roshie Xing |
| Abstract: | Over the past few months, New Jersey and Vermont have joined a growing number of U.S. states in requiring employers to include an estimated salary range in their online job listings. Has this push for greater pay transparency been effective? In this post, we use granular data on U.S. job postings from Lightcast to assess employers’ compliance with these new regulations. Focusing on the jurisdictions that adopted pay transparency laws early on, we find that many employers ignore pay transparency requirements; roughly a quarter of job listings covered by these laws fail to include salary information. |
| Keywords: | pay transparency; job postings; regulatory compliance |
| JEL: | J48 J38 |
| Date: | 2025–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednls:101881 |