Screening, Competition, and Job Design: Economic Origins of Good Jobs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bartling, Bjoern; Fehr, Ernst; Schmidt, Klaus M.
• 署名单位: University of Zurich; University of Munich
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.2.834
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 834-864
• 关键词: adoption; PRODUCTIVITY; preferences; fairness; strategy; MARKETS

摘要

High-performance work systems give workers more discretion, thereby increasing effort productivity but also shirking opportunities. We show experimentally that screening for work attitude and labor market competition are causal determinants of the viability of high-performance work systems, and we identify the complementarities between discretion, rent-sharing, and screening that render them profitable. Two fundamentally distinct job designs emerge endogenously in our experiments: bad jobs with low discretion, low wages, and little rent-sharing, and good jobs with high discretion, high wages, and substantial rent-sharing. Good jobs are profitable only if employees can be screened, and labor market competition fosters their dissemination. (JEL D12, D82, J24, J31, J41, M12, M54)