Changes in Occupational Tasks and Their Association with Individual Wages and Occupational Mobility

This study provides novel evidence on the relevance of task content changes between and within occupations to wage dynamics of occupational changers and stayers. I use individual‐level, cross‐sectional data featuring tasks performed on the job to compute a measure of proximity of job contents. Then, I merge this measure to a large‐scale panel survey to show that occupational changers experience a wage growth that is declining when the accompanying alterations in task contents are big. For occupational stayers, alterations in task contents generate a positive wage component, beyond tenure effect. However, the results are not robust with respect to the choice of proximity measure and over time.     

Using Job Rotation to Extract Employee Information

This article provides an incentive-based explanation for thepractice of job rotation. When agents privately learn aboutthe productivity of tasks on which they work, job rotation canbe an efficient means of eliciting their information. Each agentfreely communicates his information since the switch in tasksguarantees his report will not subsequently be used againsthim; the report is used primarily in evaluating the new agentwho moves into the task. Another benefit is that an agent rotatedinto a job holds less task-specific information and is thuseasier to motivate. Job rotation also comes with a cost—agentsmust be compensated for the disutility of working on new tasks.We study this trade-off and identify conditions under whichjob rotation and specialization are each optimal.     

Contracting with capacity constrained suppliers

This paper characterizes the optimal and efficient mechanisms to allocate simultaneously two substitute tasks to two suppliers. Two main results emerge from this analysis. First, even under some regularity conditions efficiency and optimality do not systematically coincide. Efficiency can always be achieved using some second price auctions which are optimal when both suppliers compete for the same task. When there is competition for different tasks the optimal production is distorted from efficiency over a nondegenerate interval of types so as to extract the full surplus over that interval. Second, full extraction of the surplus may still guarantee incentive compatibility. Received: November 2, 1998; revised version: March 2, 2000     

Public procurement in times of crisis: The bundling decision reconsidered

The government wants two tasks to be performed. In each task, unobservable effort can be exerted by a wealth-constrained private contractor. If the government faces no binding budget constraints, it is optimal to bundle the tasks. The contractor in charge of both tasks then gets a bonus payment if and only if both tasks are successful. Yet, if the government has only a limited budget, it may be optimal to separate the tasks, so that there are two contractors each in charge of one task. In this case, high efforts in both tasks can be implemented with smaller bonus payments.     

WAGE FLOORS,IMPERFECT PERFORMANCE MEASURES,AND OPTIMAL JOB DESIGN

We analyze the effects of wage floors on optimal job design in a moral‐hazard model with asymmetric tasks and imperfect aggregate performance measurement. Due to cost advantages of specialization, assigning the tasks to different agents is efficient. A sufficiently high wage floor, however, induces the principal to dismiss one agent or to even exclude tasks from the production process. Imperfect performance measurement always lowers profit under multitasking, but may increase profit under specialization. We further show that variations in the wage floor and the agents' reservation utility have significantly different effects on welfare and optimal job design.     

Job design with sequential tasks and outcome externalities revisited

We revisit job design with sequential tasks and outcome externalities from a different perspective, extending Schmitz (2013a). When two sequential tasks need to be performed by wealth-constrained agents, the principal can hire only one agent or two different agents. When there exists an outcome externality in terms of the fixed cost and such an externality is not too large, if the two tasks are conflicting (resp. synergistic), then it is optimal for the principal to hire two different agents (resp. only one agent). When there exists an outcome externality regarding the marginal cost, the opposite result holds.     

Volunteering for heterogeneous tasks

We model the search for volunteers as a war of attrition. Every player is tempted to wait for someone else to volunteer for the tasks. When tasks are not equivalent, it may be optimal to volunteer quickly to perform an easy task. We analyze the trade-off between volunteering for an easy task and taking the risk of having to perform a more strenuous task in order to get the chance of avoiding all tasks. When the cost of waiting is borne by agents until every task has found a volunteer, we show that it may be optimal to volunteer for the difficult task even if an easier task is available, in order to speed up the process and reduce the costs of waiting.     

Career Concerns,Monetary Incentives and Job Design*

We study optimal incentive contracts when commitments are limited, and agents have multiple tasks and career concerns. The agent's career concerns are determined by the outside market. We show that the principal might want to give the strongest explicit incentives to agents far from retirement to account for the fact that career concerns might induce behavior in conflict with the principal's preferences. Furthermore, we show that maximized welfare might be decreasing in the strength of career concerns, that optimal incentives can be positively correlated with various measures of uncertainty, and that career incentives have strong implications for optimal job design.     

Conflicting tasks and moral hazard: Theory and experimental evidence

We study a multi-task principal-agent problem in which tasks can be in direct conflict with each other. In theory, it is difficult to induce a single agent to exert efforts in two conflicting tasks, because effort in one task decreases the success probability of the other task. We have conducted an experiment in which we find strong support for the relevance of this incentive problem. In the presence of conflict, subjects choose two efforts significantly less often when both tasks are assigned to a single agent than when there are two agents each in charge of one task.     

Multinational firms,acquisitions and job tasks

We revisit the question how inward FDI and multinational ownership affect relative labor demand. Motivated by the recent literature that distinguish between skills and tasks, we argue that the impact of multinational and foreign ownership on the demand for labor is better captured by focusing on job tasks rather than education. We use Swedish matched employer–employee data and find that changes of local firms to both foreign and Swedish multinationals increase the relative demand for non-routine and interactive job tasks in the targeted local firms. Hence, in a high-income country, both inward and outward FDI have a task upgrading impact on local firms. The effect is primarily driven by wage effects leading to increased wage dispersion for workers with different non-routine and interactive task intensity. We also show that the effect is not the same as skill upgrading since dividing employees by educational attainment does not capture changes in the relative labor demand. Hence, our results suggest a new aspect of the labor market consequences of FDI.     

不合规任务对工作投入的双刃剑效应研究

在组织中，员工不仅需要承担角色范围内的工作职责，很多时候还被要求执行不属于自己本职工作的任务，即不合规任务。然而，不合规任务作为组织中的一种普遍现象，学术界对其影响作用及作用机制还缺乏足够探讨。本文选取工作投入作为结果变量，基于压力认知评价理论，探讨了将挑战性压力评价作为促进机制和将阻断性压力评价作为抑制机制的双重中介模型，并分析了成长需求强度在其中的调节作用。基于两阶段286份数据的研究结果表明：不合规任务一方面会通过引发挑战性压力评价而促进员工工作投入；另一方面会通过引发阻断性压力评价而抑制员工工作投入；成长需求强度正向调节挑战性压力评价在不合规任务与工作投入关系间的中介作用，即当成长需求强度高时，该中介作用越强；成长需求强度负向调节阻断性压力评价在不合规任务与工作投入关系间的中介作用，即当成长需求强度较高时，该中介作用越弱。研究结果验证了不合规任务对员工工作投入具有双刃剑效应。     

How to restore higher-powered incentives in multitask agencies

In multiple-task agency setups it is commonly accepted thatwage incentives must be weaker when the agent's performanceon some of the activities is difficult to measure. This articleshows that stronger incentives can be restored through a schemeof selective audits in which the appraisal of less tangibleactivities is contingent on observing high performance levelsin the more visible tasks. This scheme would make the effortsexpended on the various tasks complementary rather than substitutesin the agent's utility function. It is optimal under plausibleassumptions concerning the monitoring technology (separabilityof the multivariate likelihood function) and the agent's riskbehavior (absolute prudence larger than three times absoluterisk aversion).     

Queues and Hierarchies

This paper examines the optimal structure of hierarchies when workers differ in the range of tasks they can perform. A hierarchical system may reduce costs by allowing most tasks to be handled by unskilled workers. This may however increase delay for those tasks which must pass through several layers before reaching the appropriate level. The paper characterises an optimal hierarchy when such a trade-off exists.     

STRATEGIC SHIRKING: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF MULTITASKING AND SPECIALIZATION

We provide a new theory to explain why firms multitask workers instead of specializing them. Workers overperform in tasks they like and underperform in tasks they dislike to favorably influence future job assignments. Anticipating this, firms may find it optimal to commit to future multitasking to induce workers to appropriately allocate effort early in the employment relationship. We show that when the product market is volatile, so that future product prices are uncertain, the firm's ability to credibly commit to a multitasking strategy diminishes. This generates a negative relationship between multitasking and product market volatility, consistent with recent empirical evidence.     

渐进式抑或突破式：个体创新幅度对众包绩效的影响——基于计算仿真的分析

结合TCPE框架和NK模型，构建一个模拟众包问题解决过程的仿真模型，引入个体创新幅度表征个体创新搜索行为，引入个体有限理性水平和有限理性偏差表征个体认知能力，探讨个体创新幅度对众包绩效的影响机制,以及个体有限理性和任务复杂性的调节作用。结果发现：个体创新幅度与众包绩效存在两种影响模式：当任务非常简单时，个体创新幅度与众包绩效呈负相关关系；当任务复杂性较高时，个体创新幅度与众包绩效呈倒U型关系；两种影响模式不会受到个体有限理性水平和有限理性偏差的调节。在相对复杂的任务中，任务复杂性与个体有限理性偏差会调节实现最优众包绩效对应的个体创新幅度，任务复杂性越高、个体有限理性偏差越大，对应的个体创新幅度随之增加。个体创新幅度会削弱个体认知能力对众包绩效的影响，当个体认知能力较强时，需要采用渐进式创新；当个体认知能力较弱时，需要采用突破式创新。该结论可为企业在众包过程中营造平台创新氛围提供理论依据。     

Job satisfaction,job match quality and labour supply decisions

This paper introduces job satisfaction into neoclassical theory of labour supply. This simple integration produces non-trivial results: job satisfaction is able to reduce disutility of labour, thus increasing labour supply; also, if job satisfaction is very high, labour could generate utility, while leisure could provide disutility. In this paper, job satisfaction, and thus job match quality, is specified in terms of appropriate collocation of the worker in the workplace; in short, the higher the matching between the investment in education and the task assigned in the workplace, the higher the job satisfaction. An empirical analysis substantiates the two main predictions of this paper, namely the key role of job satisfaction in time allocation and labour supply decisions and the plausibility of our view about job satisfaction.     

Strategic Delegation of Multiple Tasks

This paper studies both the owner–manager relationship and the union–firm relationship in a model of unionised duopoly to analyse whether a firm's owner delegates the task of wage bargaining to a manager along with the task of output determination. We also analyse the profit and welfare effects of multiple‐task delegation. It has been shown in the literature that, when there is only one delegation task – output determination – delegation of output decisions to managers leads to lower profits for owners than non‐delegation as pure profit‐maximisation. However, when there are two delegation tasks as in our model – output determination and wage bargaining – we show that owners are better off delegating both tasks than delegating only the output decision or not delegating at all. This result provides a rationale and managerial insight for strategically delegating multiple tasks to managers. Moreover, we show that union utility, consumer surplus and social welfare are all higher when owners do not delegate the task of wage bargaining than when they do. This result suggests that governments implement union contracts that require owners, rather than managers, to negotiate wages with unions in order to benefit unions and consumers and to improve social welfare as well.     

Same process,different outcomes: group performance in an acquiring a company experiment

It is still an open question when groups perform better than individuals in intellective tasks. We report that in an Acquiring a Company game, what prevailed when there was disagreement among group members was the median proposal and not the best proposal. This aggregation rule explains why groups underperformed with respect to a “truth wins” benchmark and why they performed better than individuals deciding in isolation in a simple version of the task but worse in the more difficult version. Implications are drawn on when to employ groups rather than individuals in decision making.     

Fiscal policies,frictional labor market,and endogenous growth

This paper considers the spillover effects from public spending, and studies optimal fiscal policies in frictional labor markets. We obtain that the optimal shares of government spending in production and consumption are the same as those in a frictionless labor market under the Hosios condition. However, as higher capital accumulation increases the cost of job creation and maintenance, the optimal tax rate of capital income is positive. In addition, when the labor market is frictional, the marginal benefit of labor is larger than the marginal utility of leisure. Thus, consumption and labor should not be taxed uniformly any more. Our calibration suggests that all of the three tax rates should be positive. Moreover, in the situation in which the Hosios condition does not hold, the shares of public productive spending and public consumption both increase when the worker’s bargaining power is greater than the elasticity of search in the matching function.