Estimating a tournament model of intra-firm wage differentials

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Econometrics
Year: 2010
Volume: 155
Issue: 1
Pages: 39-55

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

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

Abstract

We consider the estimation of a tournament model with moral hazard (based on Rosen (1986), AER)) when only aggregate data on intra-firm employment levels and salaries are available. Equilibrium restrictions of the model allow us to recover parameters of interest, including equilibrium effort levels in each hierarchical stage of the firm. We illustrate our estimation procedures using data from major retail chains in the US. We find that only a fraction of the wage differential directly compensates workers for higher effort levels, implying that a large portion of the differentials arises to maintain incentives at lower rungs of the retailers.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:econom:v:155:y:2010:i:1:p:39-55
Journal Field
Econometrics
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25