[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1143.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

High Compensation Creates a Ratchet Effect

Author

Listed:
  • Gersbach, Hans

    (ETH Zurich)

  • Glazer, Amihai

    (University of California, Irvine)

Abstract
We consider a firm which pays a worker for his effort over several periods. The more the firm pays in one period, the wealthier the worker is in the following periods, and so the more he must be paid for a given effort. This wealth effect can induce an employer to pay little initially and more later on. For related reasons, the worker may work harder than the employer prefers. The incentive contracts firms offer may therefore cap the worker’s earnings. Lastly, this wealth ratchet effect can induce excessive firing and turnover.

Suggested Citation

  • Gersbach, Hans & Glazer, Amihai, 2004. "High Compensation Creates a Ratchet Effect," IZA Discussion Papers 1143, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1143
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1143.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fudenberg, Drew & Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1990. "Short-term contracts and long-term agency relationships," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-31, June.
    2. Robert G. Valletta, 1991. "Job Tenure and Joblessness of Displaced Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(4), pages 726-741.
    3. Lazear, Edward P, 1986. "Salaries and Piece Rates," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 405-431, July.
    4. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    5. Hans Gersbach & Amihai Glazer, 2009. "High Compensation Creates a Ratchet Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1208-1224, July.
    6. Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1992. "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 468-505, June.
    7. James L. Medoff & Katharine G. Abraham, 1980. "Experience, Performance, and Earnings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(4), pages 703-736.
    8. Orazio P. Attanasio & Hilary Williamson Hoynes, 2000. "Differential Mortality and Wealth Accumulation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-29.
    9. Clark, Andrew E., 1999. "Are wages habit-forming? evidence from micro data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 179-200, June.
    10. Aron, Debra J, 1987. "Worker Reputation and Productivity Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 87-106, October.
    11. Lazear, Edward P, 1979. "Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1261-1284, December.
    12. Kanemoto, Yoshitsugu & MacLeod, W Bentley, 1992. "The Ratchet Effect and the Market for Secondhand Workers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(1), pages 85-98, January.
    13. Judith K. Hellerstein & David Neumark, 2007. "Production Function and Wage Equation Estimation with Heterogeneous Labor: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set," NBER Chapters, in: Hard-to-Measure Goods and Services: Essays in Honor of Zvi Griliches, pages 31-71, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Dorman,Peter, 2009. "Markets and Mortality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521123044, September.
    15. Hutchens, Robert M, 1989. "Seniority, Wages and Productivity: A Turbulent Decade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 49-64, Fall.
    16. Hellerstein, Judith K & Neumark, David & Troske, Kenneth R, 1999. "Wages, Productivity, and Worker Characteristics: Evidence from Plant-Level Production Functions and Wage Equations," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 409-446, July.
    17. Bizer, David S. & DeMarzo, Peter M., 1999. "Optimal Incentive Contracts When Agents Can Save, Borrow, and Default," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 241-269, October.
    18. David Neumark, 2003. "Age Discrimination Legislation in the United States," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(3), pages 297-317, July.
    19. Joseph G. Altonji & Nicolas Williams, 1992. "The Effects of Labor Market Experience, Job Seniority, and Job Mobility on Wage Growth," NBER Working Papers 4133, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hans Gersbach & Amihai Glazer, 2009. "High Compensation Creates a Ratchet Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1208-1224, July.
    2. Kimiko Terai & Amihai Glazer, 2021. "How an ineffective agent can increase his budget," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 133-147, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Faria, Joao & Jellal, Mohamed, 2009. "A Siocio-Psychological Theory of Efficiency Wage Growth," MPRA Paper 17184, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Benoit Dostie, 2011. "Wages, Productivity and Aging," De Economist, Springer, vol. 159(2), pages 139-158, June.
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.
    5. Thomas Zwick, 2012. "Consequences of Seniority Wages on the Employment Structure," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(1), pages 108-125, January.
    6. Clark, Andrew E., 1999. "Are wages habit-forming? evidence from micro data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 179-200, June.
    7. Macera, Rosario, 2018. "Intertemporal incentives under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 551-594.
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 1999. "Personnel Economics: Past Lessons and Future Directions," NBER Working Papers 6957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jean-Olivier Hairault & Francois Langot & Arnaud Cheron, 2007. "Job creation and job destruction over the life cycle," 2007 Meeting Papers 431, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. John G. Sessions & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2014. "Tenure, Wage Profiles and Monitoring," Research in Labor Economics, in: New Analyses of Worker Well-Being, volume 38, pages 105-162, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Ourania Karakosta & Nikos Tsakiris, 2009. "Indirect Tax Reforms and Public Goods under Imperfect Competition," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 5-2009, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    12. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Weiss, Matthias, 2016. "Productivity and age: Evidence from work teams at the assembly line," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 30-42.
    13. Daniel Vuuren, 2014. "Flexible Retirement," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 573-593, July.
    14. Christian Pfeifer, 2009. "Adjustment of Deferred Compensation Schemes, Fairness Concerns, and Hiring of Older Workers," Working Paper Series in Economics 151, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    15. Vegard Skirbekk, 2004. "Age and Individual Productivity: A Literature Survey," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 2(1), pages 133-154.
    16. Pfeifer, Christian, 2009. "An Intra-Firm Perspective on Wage Profiles and Employment of Older Workers with Special Reference to Human Capital and Deferred Compensation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-413, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    17. KODAMA Naomi & ODAKI Kazuhiko, 2012. "A New Approach to Measuring the Gap between Marginal Productivity and Wages of Workers," Discussion papers 12028, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    18. Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Chéron, Arnaud & Langot, François, 2007. "Job Creation and Job Destruction over the Life Cycle: The Older Workers in the Spotlight," IZA Discussion Papers 2597, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Rafael Tenorio, 2000. "The Economics of Professional Boxing Contracts," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(4), pages 363-384, November.
    20. Nieken, Petra & Schmitz, Patrick W., 2012. "Repeated moral hazard and contracts with memory: A laboratory experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 1000-1008.
    21. Grund, Christian & Sliwka, Dirk, 2001. "The Impact of Wage Increases on Job Satisfaction - Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wealth effects; Ratchet effects; moral hazard; compensation; principal-agent; high-powered incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1143. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.