Self-control and the rise and fall of factory discipline

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hiller, Victor
• 署名单位: Universite Paris-Pantheon-Assas
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.02.004
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 187-200
• 关键词: Economic development; time-inconsistency; Organizational changes; monetary incentives; Factory discipline

摘要

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model that accounts for the historical pattern of the rise and fall of factory discipline in the course of economic development. Firms have two alternative means to increase work effort: discipline and control vs. monetary incentives. A key ingredient of our model lies in the fact that workers suffer from present-bias. We show that this lack of self-control makes discipline relatively cheap when workers' outside option is low even in the absence of moral hazard. Then, as one economy develops, it endogenously goes through three stages where firms successively use low-powered monetary incentives, factory discipline and then high-powered monetary incentives. When moral hazard is introduced, multiple development paths may emerge.