The name of the game is to keep your employees engaged in their work and make as much money as possible. In our basic principal-agent model where you’re trying to figure out how much to pay someone for their effort, it’s been empirically proven that a 100% commission rate let’s agents make enough money toContinue reading “How to pay who — risk and multidimensional roles”
Author Archives: Adam Davis
First written midterm: practice questions
Summary: Testing The Theory of Multitasking: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment in Chinese Factories (Hong)
The following is a brief summary of a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on the effects of bonus-pay schemes in firms where workers’ output is judged on multiple dimensions including quality. Principal-agent relations present an omnipresent feature to modern economies. The fundamental issue is that the worker (the agent) hasContinue reading “Summary: Testing The Theory of Multitasking: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment in Chinese Factories (Hong)”
Summary: Race, Tenure and Resource Allocation in Southern Agriculture, 1910 (Higgs)
“We have inherited from the literature on the post-bellum South the image of a society ruled by force and violence, divided by racism and class distinctions, immobilized by ignorance and agrarian traditions. There is, of course, a large element of truth in all this. But too often this image has paralyzed critical thought, especially aboutContinue reading “Summary: Race, Tenure and Resource Allocation in Southern Agriculture, 1910 (Higgs)”
Week 0: Introduction to Personnel Economics
Exchanging your efforts in return for wages is quite possibly the most important transaction in the entire economy. The amount a firm pays you directly affects their bottom line profits and your quality of life. I’m not going to tell you how to live your best life, but for me, living my best life isContinue reading “Week 0: Introduction to Personnel Economics”
Third Quarter, 2019
The U.S. economy extended its record long expansion into the third quarter of 2019 as real GDP increased 1.9 percent and beat market expectations. The increase reflected positive contributions from PCE, government spending, residential fixed investment and exports; negative contributions from nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment partially offset those gains.[1] American consumers continueContinue reading “Third Quarter, 2019”
Summary: Do Agents Game Their Agents’ Behavior? Evidence from Sales Managers (Benson)
The Firm, the Managers and the Employees – Do their interests align? Allen Benson examines how sales managers game the staffing and incentives of their subordinates and looks at the imperfect ability of organizational hierarchies to motivate employees to act on the organization’s behalf. The study examines data in 244 firms provided by on-demand (cloud)Continue reading “Summary: Do Agents Game Their Agents’ Behavior? Evidence from Sales Managers (Benson)”
November 2019: Nonfarm payrolls and ISM Report
Nonfarm employers added 266,000 jobs to their payrolls in November and the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 3.5 percent. Hiring in November sped up after slowing down the two previous months.[1] Manufacturing added 54,000 jobs, mostly due to the impact of workers returning from the strike at General Motors. Real hourly earnings remained stagnant, increasingContinue reading “November 2019: Nonfarm payrolls and ISM Report”
Housing Market: Buy or Hold
This article was originally written in June, 2019 Thinking about buying a house? Consider using the Fed’s “wait and see” strategy as your guide. Six months ago we expected to see the Fed push rates higher several times this year. However, recent data and a change in tone indicates we may be approaching a rateContinue reading “Housing Market: Buy or Hold”
About
I am a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & Accounting. This blog includes some of my relevant coursework and is designed for other students and potential employers interested in hiring students from the major.
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