The effect of the equal rights amendment on the economic status of women

Conclusion The empirical analysis of the effect of stateERA's on the economic status of women yielded mixed results. The amendment has provided more job opportunities and promotions into male-stereotyped occupations. TheERA, however, has not commensurately provided equal pay for equal work or higher relative pay. Yet, on balance, theERA has provided gains for women. The employment gains progressed slowly but steadily between 1969 and 1976. Women in states that passed an equal rights amendment have made a small but substantial stride toward equality with men.     

Audit Fee Differential,Audit Effort,and Litigation Risk: An Examination of ADR Firms

Prior studies find that audit fees are higher for cross‐listed firms, and these studies primarily attribute the incremental fees to added litigation costs. In this study, we investigate whether the higher audit fees that foreign firms cross‐listed in the United States pay are also attributable to incremental audit effort associated with U.S. disclosure requirements and a more stringent U.S. auditing environment. By comparing audit fees of foreign cross‐listed firms to U.S. domiciled firms and to non‐cross‐listed foreign firms, we are able to decompose incremental audit fees into portions attributable to added audit effort and to added litigation costs. We find that, on average, foreign firms cross‐listed in the United States pay significantly higher fees than domestic U.S. firms and foreign firms that do not cross‐list. Furthermore, we find that audit effort is almost as important as litigation costs in explaining the higher fees associated with foreign cross‐listed firms; our estimates suggest that between 29 percent and 48 percent of the incremental fees are attributable to incremental audit effort. In addition, the total cross‐listing premium is increasing in the difference between the U.S. auditing regulatory environment and that of the home country of the cross‐listed firm. Our study improves our understanding of the role of audit effort in explaining the added fees charged by auditors when foreign firms cross‐list in the United States.     

基于心理收入的知识型员工激励与企业绩效关系研究

文章在考虑心理收入的前提下,建立了企业和知识型员工之间的委托代理模型,通过在不同心理收入水平下比较企业的业绩提成比例和员工的努力程度,分析了知识型员工激励与企业绩效的关系,研究结果表明要提高企业绩效就要进行旨在提高知识型员工心理收入的激励管理,同时要聘用满足岗位工作环境的知识型员工。得出了知识型员工面对完全满意的工作环境时的努力程度是在面对完全不接受的工作环境时的2倍。研究结果有助于企业在考虑知识型员工心理收入的同时合理建立更加有效的工资合同,为企业节约薪酬成本,提高企业绩效提供了定量方法和理论依据。     

Promotions in the internal labor market: New evidence from China

Using unique personnel data from a firm in China, we analyze promotions in an internal labor market. Specifically, we explore the firm's hierarchy and promotion patterns as well as the relationship between promotions and compensation. Unlike previous works, we focus on promotions throughout the firm's hierarchy including rank-and-files and promotions across branches. By doing so, we hope to shed new light on the black box of a firm's internal hiring and promotion practices and improve understanding of the internal labor market.     

非生产性努力、政府规制与私营经济发展

本文认为,地方政府的规制水平不同,使得不同地区私营企业家的非生产性努力程度有差异;在企业家能够自由流动的条件下,规制条件好的地区会对企业家产生集聚效应,促使地区私营经济快速发展;私营企业家的集聚使私营经济的力量得到壮大,更能影响政府的政策和规制条件,因此经济朝着优均衡的状态发展;如果地区私营经济向地方政府寻租,造成偏私性资源配置,那么私营经济发展就会走向劣均衡。     

Controlling and Motivating the Workforce: Evidence from the Banking Industry in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Large banks have a considerable advantage over their smaller rivals because they are better able to diversify their portfolios. However, to achieve this advantage they must overcome agency problems associated with delegating decision making to non-owner employees. This paper uses evidence from the Union Bank of Australia to examine mechanisms used to monitor and motivate workers. Monitoring took the form of rigorous screening, beginning with the hiring process and continuing with frequent performance evaluations. Workers were also given strict rules of behaviour and incentives to supply effort in the form of seniority-based wages, performance-based promotions, and a generous pension plan.     

Job Allocation Rules and Sorting Efficiency: Experimental Outcomes in a Peter Principle Environment

An important issue in personnel economics is the design of efficient job allocation rules. Firms often use promotions both to sort workers across jobs and to provide them with incentives. However, the Peter Principle states that employees' output tends to fall after a promotion. Lazear (2004) suggests that self‐selection may improve job allocation efficiency while preserving incentive effects. We reproduce this Peter Principle in the laboratory and compare the efficiency of a promotion standard with subjects self‐selecting their task. We find no evidence of effort distortion, as predicted by theory. Furthermore, we find that when the Peter Principle is not severe, promotion rules often dominate self‐selection efficiency of task assignment. Results are consistent with imperfect appraisal of transitory ability and a lack of strategic behavior.     

The Max‐Min Group Contest: Weakest‐link (Group) All‐Pay Auction

We investigate a group all‐pay auction in which each group's effort is represented by the minimum among the effort levels exerted by the group members and the prize is a group‐specific public good. We fully characterize the symmetric equilibria for two groups. There are four types of equilibria: the pure strategy equilibria in which all (active) players exert the same effort; the semi‐pure strategy equilibria in which the players in a group play the same pure strategy whereas those in the other group play the same mixed strategy; the nondegenerate mixed strategy equilibria with continuous support; and the nondegenerate mixed strategy equilibria with discontinuous support. We then analyze a general contest with n groups.     

The Part-Time Wage Gap: a Career Perspective

Summary  Because promotions are an important source of wage growth, we argue that the low incidence of promotions among part-time workers will contribute to the emergence of the part-time wage gap. We test this claim using Dutch employer–employee matched data. We find that the part-time wage gap is absent among young school leavers, but that it is well established among more mature workers. Moreover, we find that promotions account for a wage growth of about eight log points. Finally, workers in part-time jobs experience a lower rate of promotion relative to workers in full-time jobs. We are grateful to the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment for granting access to the data. The paper greatly benefited from comments by Daniel Hamermesh, Jonathan Wadsworth, and seminar participants at ZEW in Mannheim, at WPEG conference at York University and Tilburg University. We are also indebted to two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions that substantially improved the quality of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.     

Board Gender Diversity,Auditor Fees,and Auditor Choice

We examine whether the presence of female directors and female audit committee members affect audit quality in terms of audit effort and auditor choice by using observations from a sample of U.S. firms, spanning the years 2001–2011. We find, after controlling for endogeneity and other board, firm, and industry characteristics, that firms with gender‐diverse boards (audit committees) pay 6 percent (8 percent) higher audit fees and are 6 percent (7 percent) more likely to choose specialist auditors compared to all‐male boards (audit committees). Our findings suggest that boards (audit committees) with female directors (members) are likely to demand higher audit quality, ceteris paribus.     

The Effects of Vertical Pay Dispersion: Experimental Evidence in a Budget Setting

Vertical pay dispersion is the difference in pay across different hierarchical levels within an organization (Milkovich and Newman 1996 ). While vertical pay dispersion may be useful in attracting, retaining, and motivating highly skilled employees (Lazear and Rosen 1981 ; Lazear 1995 ; Prendergast 1999 ), our study investigates a potential disadvantage; specifically, the negative impact of perceived unfairness of vertical pay dispersion on employees' budgeting decisions. We predict and find that high vertical pay dispersion motivates subordinates to misreport costs to a greater extent than low vertical pay dispersion. Furthermore, we predict and find that superiors, on average, exercise more lenient cost controls when vertical pay dispersion is high rather than low. Supplemental analysis indicates superiors are more lenient on average because of their aversion to inequity caused by vertical pay dispersion. Our results suggest that high vertical pay dispersion can compromise the overall corporate budgeting environment, where higher levels of misreporting by subordinates goes unchecked by superiors.     

企业治理之合约安排视角研究

本文基于合约安排的视角对企业治理进行了研究．主要通过激励合约设计．分析代理人剩余分享系数、努力变量、激励变量、努力成本和激励成本等变量之间的相互关系及其经济意义，从而得出了一些主要的基本结论：第一，委托人设计的激励合约具有一定的状态依存性。第二，委托人的监管效率是合约设计的重要因素，且监管本身具有概率性。第三，委托人要关注边际业绩分享系数的作用，进而必须关注“剩余标的”本身的选择。第四，一旦委托人也对产出做出自己的贡献，代理人的风险中立性就不能保证带来最优的结果。第五，委托人“先行一步”的优势是激励合约效率最大化的重要因素。     

Income and Effort: An Instrumental Variables Approach

Does income affect how much people value effort? If income has a negative causal effect on how much effort is valued, an increase in income will adversely affect the cultivation of a growth mindset. Achievement will then be affected because intelligence, abilities, skills, and intrinsic motivation are affected. By utilizing data from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey, this paper shows that doubling income reduces the probability of an individual valuing effort by two to three percentage points. This study is the first to examine the effect of income on how much effort is valued. It addresses the endogeneity of income by using the regional unemployment rate, regional Consumer Price Index, and regional retail growth rate as instruments. Placebo tests were performed to evaluate the validity of the instruments. The negative causal effect of income on how much effort is valued implies that creating an environment where intrinsic motivations can flourish is of greater importance among higher income workers. Promoting employees with higher income may have a negative effect on engagement through the cultivation of a growth mindset.

     

Banker compensation,relative performance,and bank risk

A multi-agent, moral-hazard model of a bank operating under deposit insurance and limited liability is used to analyze the connection between compensation of bank employees (below CEO) and bank risk. Limited liability with deposit insurance is a force that distorts effort down. However, the need to increase compensation to risk-averse employees in order to compensate them for extra bank risk is a force that reduces this effect. Optimal contracts use relative performance and are implementable as a wage with bonuses tied to individual and firm performance. The connection between pay for performance and bank risk depends on correlation of returns. If employee returns are uncorrelated, the form of pay is irrelevant for risk. If returns are perfectly correlated, a low wage can indicate risk. Connections to compensation regulation and characteristics of organizations are discussed.     

委托代理框架下的薪酬及对经理人的激励

在委托代理问题当中,如何支付代理人的薪酬一直是研究的热点。本文考虑了信息对称(代理人行为可观测)和信息不对称(代理人行为不可观测)两种情况下经理人的最优努力程度及委托人支付给经理人的最优薪酬。文章还以若干封闭式基金的累计单位净值及管理人报酬等数据,分析了我国封闭式基金的业绩对薪酬的影响。     

The Effect of Competitive Bidding on Engagement Planning and Pricing*

This paper investigates how clients' choices regarding whether or not to engage in competitive bidding affect a bidding firm's decisions about planned engagement effort and pricing. Specifically, we investigate whether competitive bidding is associated with higher planned engagement effort and lower fees relative to noncompetitive bidding, and whether competitive bidding is associated with increased sensitivity of effort and fees to cost drivers and the components of service production. There is little available evidence regarding the effects of competitive versus noncompetitive bidding in the current market, and none that focuses on both quality and pricing effects associated with competitive bidding across a broad array of clients. We address these issues using data from a sample of one firm's evaluations of prospective clients, made during 1997‐98. During that period, about half of the firm's bids were competitive and half were noncompetitive, providing a unique opportunity to study how the bidding environment affects engagement planning and pricing. Our findings reveal that competitive bidding is associated with higher planned engagement effort and lower fees. In addition, we find that in competitive bidding situations there are stronger associations between cost drivers and planned engagement effort, and between the components of service production and fees.     

Turning Up the Volume: An Experimental Investigation of the Role of Mutual Monitoring in Tournaments

This study investigates experimentally how mutual monitoring affects effort when employees are compensated via rank‐order tournaments. Theory and anecdotal evidence suggest that mutual monitoring may either decrease effort by facilitating collusion or increase effort by stimulating competition. In our first experiment, we find that mutual monitoring increases effort, because participants do not attempt to collude but rather behave competitively. This result leads us to expand our theory and develop hypotheses to predict that the effect of mutual monitoring depends on whether employees have the inclination to collude or compete. Specifically, we predict that mutual monitoring decreases effort when employees are inclined to collude and increases effort when employees are inclined to compete; that is, mutual monitoring will not change the basic inclination created by the workplace setting, but will “turn up the volume” on the effect that such inclination has on effort. Consistent with our predictions, our second experiment finds that mutual monitoring leads to lower effort when participants have a collusive inclination and (eventually) higher effort when they have a competitive inclination. Overall, the results from these two experiments suggest that allowing employees to observe each other's productive effort in tournament incentive settings may have positive or negative consequences for the firm, depending on whether environmental factors predispose employees to collude or compete.     

体验营销在农村市场中的应用初探

本文认为,在农村市场实施体验营销,应该从农村市场的特点出发,做好以下几方面的工作:提供培训机会,创造学习体验;带动农民致富,创造收获体验;重视可户沟通,加强情感体验;调查促销方式,创造快乐体验;把握农村需求,提供个性体验。     

Executive Gender Pay Gaps: The Roles of Female Risk Aversion and Board Representation

Using a large sample of executives in S&P 1500 firms over 1996–2010, we document significant salary and total compensation gaps between female and male executives and explore two possible explanations for the gaps. We find support for greater female risk aversion as one contributing factor. Female executives hold significantly lower equity incentives and demand larger salary premiums for bearing a given level of compensation risk. These results suggest that females’ risk aversion contributes to the observed lower pay levels through its effect on ex ante compensation structures. We also find evidence that the lack of gender diversity on corporate boards affects the size of the gaps. In firms with a higher proportion of female directors on the board, the gaps in salary and total pay levels are lower. Together, these findings suggest that female higher risk aversion may act as a barrier to full pay convergence, despite the mitigating effect from greater gender diversity on the board.     

Auditor Liability and Business Investment*

We model a firm's investment decision, an auditor's effort‐rendering behavior, audit fees, and prices of the firms under two auditor liability rules: strict liability and negligence liability. We show that an auditor's effort level is socially optimal under strict liability, while it is not generally so under negligence liability. Furthermore, both the firm owner's expected benefit and the audit fee are higher under strict liability than under negligence liability. We define the legal error under negligence liability as the difference between the assessed audit effort (that is, the estimate of audit effort made by the court) and the actual audit effort and prove that the greater the variance of the legal error, the more incentive an auditor has to exert effort under negligence liability compared with strict liability. Finally, the number of investments being undertaken could be higher under strict liability because more firm owners are willing to hire auditors to go public.