This chapter surveys the contributions of laboratory experiments to labor economics. We
begin with a discussion of methodological issues: when (and why) is a lab experiment the …

This paper reviews the significant progress in “agency theory”(ie, the economic theory of
incentives) during the 1990s, with an eye toward applications to supply transactions. I …

The publish-or-perish principle has become a fact of academic life in gaining a position or
being promoted. Evidence is mounting that benefits of this pressure is being countered by …

This paper provides an overview of the existing theoretical and empirical work on the
provision of incentives. It reviews the costs and benefits of many types of pay-for …

Relational contracts—informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships—
are prevalent within and between firms. We develop repeated-game models showing why …

Incentive contracts often include important subjective components that mitigate incentive
distortions caused by imperfect objective measures. This paper explores the combined use …

In this paper, the author summarizes four new strands in agency theory that help him think
about incentives in real organizations. As a point of departure, The author begins with a …

In the formative stages of their businesses, entrepreneurs have to provide incentives for
employees to protect, rather than steal, the source of organizational rents. We study how the …

Most of the economics literature on compensation and organizations builds from the theory
of agency.'For the most part, the literature analyzes situations in which agents' performance …

We show that a framework that integrates job assignment, human-capital acquisition, and
learning captures several empirical findings concerning wage and promotion dynamics …