Contract Form, Wage Flexibility, and Employment

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2012
Volume: 102
Issue: 3
Pages: 526-31

Score contribution per author:

2.681 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We begin with two uncontroversial hypotheses - firm productivity is expensive to measure and employment entails relationship-specific investments. These assumptions imply that firms would optimally choose fixed-wage contracts, and complement these with bonus pay when measuring employee performance is not too costly. These assumptions imply that under an optimal employment contract hours of work is less responsive, while total compensation is more responsive to shocks under bonus-pay contracts compared to fixed wage contracts. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) where shocks are proxied using the local unemployment rate, we find strong support for these two implications.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:3:p:526-31
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25