Using a large-scale linked-employer-employee data set from western Germany, this paper presents new evidence on the wage premium of collective bargaining contracts. In contrast to previous studies, we seek to assess the extent to which differences in wages between workers in covered and uncovered firms arise from the non-random selection of workers and firms into collective bargaining coverage....

Subcontracting of specialized functions to external companies (e.g. cleaning or maintenance) is actually very common within several industries. These external companies' are called contractors and their contracting is often designated as outsourcing. Frequently contractors involve other companies (the sub-contractors) to assist them in fulfilling the contract, resulting in a complex chain of or...

Crowdsourcing and human computation are being employed in sophisticated projects that require the solution of a heterogeneous set of tasks. We explore the challenge of composing or hiring an effective team from an available pool of applicants for performing tasks required for such projects on an ongoing basis. How can one optimally spend budget to learn the expertise of workers as part of recru...

Abstract Written employment contracts may improve the conditions of agricultural workers in developing countries, but farmers as employers often prefer less formal oral arrangements. We evaluate whether farmers’ preferences, which are deeply rooted traditional norms, can be influenced through a group awareness campaign. In randomised experiment Côte d’Ivoire, we show that such campaign increase...

Self-control problems change the logic of agency theory: workers not only fail to work as hard as employers would like, they fail to work as hard as they themselves would like. In response, firms can use incentive pay to affect the self-control problem, not just moral hazard. We describe the results of a year-long field experiment on data entry workers designed to test the empirical importance ...