What is the fair wage? A model of as-if-co-operation

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Committing to Incentives: Should the Decision to Sanction be Revealed or Hidden?

Sanctions are widely used to promote compliance in principal-agent-relationships. While there is ample evidence confirming the predicted positive incentive effect of sanctions, it has also been shown that imposing sanctions may in fact reduce compliance by crowding-out intrinsic motivation. We add to the literature on the hidden costs of control by showing that these costs are restricted to situations where principals ex ante reveal their decision to sanction low compliance. If this decision is not revealed and agents do not know whether they will be sanctioned or not in case of low compliance, we do not find evidence of crowding-out - not even in those cases where agents firmly believe that they will be sanctioned in case of low performance.Intrinsic Motivation, Monetary Incentives, Job Performance

Standortfaktor Arbeitsrecht: Die Bewertung durch ausländische Investoren

Die strikten Regulierungen im deutschen Arbeitsrecht gelten als Nachteil für Deutschland im internationalen Wettbewerb um Produktionsstandorte. Welche Bedeutung haben arbeitsrechtliche Faktoren bei der Standortentscheidung von Unternehmen? Wie bewerten US Investoren das deutsche Arbeitsrecht im Vergleich? --

Übertarifliche Entlohnung : ein Ergebnis vorweggenommener Verhandlungen (Wages above the collectively agreed level: a result of anticipated negotiations)

"The failure of the more recent attempts to discriminate between alternative explanation approaches of wages above the collectively agreed level (market, negotiation, and efficiency wage approach) (cf. last Bellman/Kohaut 1995 in this journal) is probably not the result of a data deficit, but of a theory deficit. In this article an attempt is made to reduce this theory deficit. Anew explanation approach is developed, the approach of anticipated or implied negotiations, in which it is assumed that that the employer anticipates the result of a negotiation with the employee in order to save the costs of an argument with him/her. In contrast to the approach of a collective 'second wage round' at company level, however, individual negotiations are assumed. The degree to which wages are paid above the collectively agreed level depends in the result both on a number of company-specific factors and on market and institutional factors. The conclusions are surprisingly consistent with the stylized facts of the labour market - even though the 'works council' was completely neglected as an institution." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))übertariflicher Lohn, Lohntheorie

Intrafirm Conflicts and Interfirm Price Competition

We study interfirm price competition in the presence of horizontal and vertical intrafirm conflicts in each firm. Intrafirm conflicts are captured by a principal-agent framework with firms employing more than one agent and implementing a tournament incentive scheme. The principals offer premium incentives in the sense of revenue shares to which agents react by proposing a sales price. Introducing such intrafirm conflicts results in higher prices and lower effort levels. Increasing the number of agents lowers the optimal surplus share of the agents as well as the individual effort and the sales prices. Firm profits first increase and then decrease when employing more and more agents suggesting that principals should employ an intermediate number of agents.Price competition, Agency theory

The International Regulation Of Maternity Leave: Leave Duration, Predictability, And Employer-Co-financed Maternity Pay

Provisions for maternity leave are common among industrialized countries, but their institutional design varies distinctly from country to country. In this paper we analyze the costs of maternity leave legislation in the US, Germany, Denmark and the UK by comparing the legal provisions on leave durations and on employer-co-financed maternity pay. We argue that the costs of re-organi­zation in response to maternity leave will not simply increase with its duration, but will instead be hump-shaped displaying a maximum at medium-leave durations. More than its expected duration, however, the predictability of leave duration will influence the costs of re-organization. Employer co-financed maternity pay further adds to these costs. Following our theoretical analysis, we re­view the existing empirical literature on maternity leave: While existing surveys among employers and working mothers are in line with our theoretical considerations, the mixed evidence presented in the existing econometric studies concerning the effect of leave duration on female wages and la­bor force participation may result from having excluded the issue of predictability of leave dura­tion as well as the question of co-financed maternity pay. We close with (tentative) conclusions for the design of maternity leave provisions, which are currently being discussed and revised in many countries around the world

Die Neugestaltung der Finanzierung des Mutterschutzes - ein Kommentar zum Mutterschutz-Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes

Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes verpflichtet den Gesetzgeber, bis Ende 2005 eine neue Regelung zur Finanzierung der Lohnersatzleistungen während des Mutterschutzes zu erlassen. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat in seinem Urteil zwar offen gelassen, welche Finanzierungsvariante der Gesetzgeber wählen sollte. Jedoch wird eine Ausweitung des in Deutschland für Kleinbetriebe mit bis zu 20 Mitarbeitern bereits praktizierten Umlageverfahrens U2 auf alle Betriebe in die Diskussion gebracht. Prof. Dr. Dorothea Alewell, Universität Jena, und Prof. Dr. Kerstin Pull, Universität Tübingen, kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass ein Übergang vom individuellen Arbeitgeberzuschuss hin zu einer allgemeinen Umlagefinanzierung bzw. Pflichtversicherung zwar eine Minderung der Benachteiligung von Frauen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt erwarten lässt, die arbeitgeberseitig anfallenden Kosten des Mutterschutzes würden jedoch weiterhin auf den Faktor Arbeit überwälzt (nunmehr auf Männer und Frauen) mit den zu befürchtenden negativen Auswirkungen auf die Beschäftigung. Eine steuerfinanzierte Lösung wäre aus ihrer Sicht deutlich vorzuziehen, weil sie das gesellschaftliche Ziel des Schutzes von Schwangeren und jungen Müttern auf eine breite gesellschaftliche Finanzierungsbasis stellt und dabei zugleich negative Wirkungen auf die Arbeitsmarktposition von Frauen vermeidet.Mutterschutz, Finanzierung, Umlageverfahren, Lohnersatzleistungen, Beschäftigung, Deutschland

Recht als Ressource: Die Aushandlung freiwilliger Leistungen in Betrieben

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Equity versus Efficiency? - Evidence from Three-Person Generosity Experiments -

In two-person generosity games the proposer's agreement payoff is exogenously given whereas that of the responder is endogenously determined by the proposer's choice of the pie size. Earlier results for two-person generosity games show that participants seem to care more for efficiency than for equity. In three-person generosity games equal agreement payoffs for two of the players are either exogenously excluded or imposed. We predict that the latter crowds out - or at least weakens - efficiency seeking. Our treatments rely on a 2x3 factorial design differing in whether the responder or the third (dummy) player is the residual claimant and whether the proposer's agreement payoff is larger, equal, or smaller than the other exogenously given agreement payoff.generosity game, equity, efficiency, experiment

Beschäftigungs- und Lohndynamik in hochqualifizierten Unternehmen

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