IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v18y2004i2p177-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contract Length as Risk Management When Labor is not Homogeneous

Author

Listed:
  • Joel G. Maxcy

Abstract

This paper examines the choice of contract length for workers who possess unique skills. Uncertainty, facing both the worker and the firm, creates an incentive to reallocate risk. The uncertainty arises from two sources: variation in the market value of the worker's human capital and fluctuation in the worker's physical production. Long‐term contracts are typically modeled as compensating wage differentials, or as a solution to the problem of asymmetric information. This paper develops a model proposing more complex behavior in the reallocation of risk between the contracting parties. The model shows that long‐term labor contracts are most likely to be observed when price uncertainty in the labor market exceeds the worker's productive uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel G. Maxcy, 2004. "Contract Length as Risk Management When Labor is not Homogeneous," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 18(2), pages 177-189, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:18:y:2004:i:2:p:177-189
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1121-7081.2004.00263.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1121-7081.2004.00263.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1121-7081.2004.00263.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fort, Rodney D & Quirk, James, 1988. "Normal Backwardation and the Inventory Effect," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 81-99, February.
    2. Rolfo, Jacques, 1980. "Optimal Hedging under Price and Quantity Uncertainty: The Case of a Cocoa Producer," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 100-116, February.
    3. Ronald I. McKinnon, 1967. "Futures Markets, Buffer Stocks, and Income Stability for Primary Producers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(6), pages 844-844.
    4. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    5. Joskow, Paul L, 1987. "Contract Duration and Relationship-Specific Investments: Empirical Evidence from Coal Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 168-185, March.
    6. Martin Neil Baily, 1974. "Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 37-50.
    7. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January.
    8. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    9. Robert M. Conroy & Richard J. Rendleman Jr., 1983. "Pricing commodities when both price and output are uncertain," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(4), pages 439-450, December.
    10. Polinsky, A Mitchell, 1987. "Fixed Price versus Spot Price Contracts: A Study in Risk Allocation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 27-46, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anthony C. Krautmann, 2013. "What Is Right With Scully Estimates of a Player’s Marginal Revenue Product," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(1), pages 97-105, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert Dur & Heiner Schmittdiel, 2019. "Paid to Quit," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 387-406, December.
    2. H. Naci Mocan & Deborah Viola, 1997. "The Determinants of Child Care Workers' Wages and Compensation: Sectoral Differences, Human Capital, Race, Insiders and Outsiders," NBER Working Papers 6328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Pissarides, Christopher, 2002. "Consumption and savings with unemployment risk: implications for optimal employment contracts," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2211, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Carstensen, Vivian, 1999. "Beschäftigungssicherung durch Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-228, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    5. Milton Harris & Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "A Theory of Wage Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 315-333.
    6. Michael Waldman, 1984. "Job Assignments, Signalling, and Efficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(2), pages 255-267, Summer.
    7. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2010. "Why Do Firms Offer ‘Employment Protection’?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 613-636, October.
    8. Borys Grochulski & Yuzhe Zhang, 2017. "Market‐Based Incentives," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(2), pages 331-382, May.
    9. Neele Balke & Thibaut Lamadon, 2020. "Productivity Shocks, Long-Term Contracts and Earnings Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 28060, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Pissarides, Christopher, 2002. "Consumption and Savings with Unemployment Risk: Implications for Employment Contracts," CEPR Discussion Papers 3367, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Carstensen, Vivian, 2000. "Employment Stability via Annualized Hours Contracts," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-230, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    12. Balke, Neele & Lamadon, Thibaut, 2021. "Productivity shocks, long-term contracts and earnings dynamics," Working Paper Series 2021:19, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    13. Thibaut Lamadon, 2014. "Productivity Shocks, Dynamic Contracts and Income Uncertainty," 2014 Meeting Papers 243, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Thorsten Posselt & Thomas Bürkle, 2006. "Franchising als Mischsystem: Die Bestimmung des optimalen Anteils der franchisenehmerbetriebenen Einheiten am Gesamtsystem," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 150-168, March.
    15. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    16. Andrew Ellul & Marco Pagano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2018. "Employment and Wage Insurance within Firms: Worldwide Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1298-1340.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8811 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Simonetta Longhi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2006. "Spatial Heterogeneity And The Wage Curve Revisited," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 707-731, October.
    19. Gordon, Robert J, 1982. "Why U.S. Wage and Employment Behaviour Differs from That in Britain and Japan," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(365), pages 13-44, March.
    20. Christian Calmès, 2005. "Self-Enforcing Labour Contracts and the Dynamics Puzzle," Staff Working Papers 05-1, Bank of Canada.
    21. Matthias Efing & Harald Hau & Patrick Kampkötter & Jean-Charles Rochet, 2023. "Bank Bonus Pay as a Risk Sharing Contract," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(1), pages 235-280.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:18:y:2004:i:2:p:177-189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.