IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedmsr/475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning-by-employing: the value of commitment under uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Braz Camargo
  • Elena Pastorino

Abstract

We analyze commitment to employment in an environment in which an infinitely lived firm faces a sequence of finitely lived workers who differ in their ability to produce output. The ability of a worker is initially unknown to both the worker and the firm, and a worker's effort affects the information on ability that is conveyed by performance. We characterize equilibria and show that they display commitment to employment only when effort has a persistent but delayed impact on output. In this case, by providing insurance against early termination, commitment encourages workers to exert effort, thus improving the firm's ability to identify their talent. We argue that the incentive value of commitment to retention helps explain the use of fixed probationary appointments in environments in which there exists uncertainty about ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Braz Camargo & Elena Pastorino, . "Learning-by-employing: the value of commitment under uncertainty," Staff Report, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmsr:475
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=5001
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr475.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gustavo Manso, 2011. "Motivating Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1823-1860, October.
    2. Toshihiko Mukoyama & Ayşegül Şahin, 2005. "Repeated moral hazard with persistence," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 25(4), pages 831-854, June.
    3. Suman Ghosh & Michael Waldman, 2010. "Standard promotion practices versus up‐or‐out contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 301-325, June.
    4. J. Luis Guasch & Andrew Weiss, 1982. "An Equilibrium Analysis of Wage—Productivity Gaps," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(4), pages 485-497.
    5. Felli, Leonardo & Harris, Christopher, 1996. "Learning, Wage Dynamics, and Firm-Specific Human Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 838-868, August.
    6. Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J, 1992. "Optimal Incentive Contracts in the Presence of Career Concerns: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 468-505, June.
    7. Brendan O'Flaherty & Aloysius Siow, 1992. "On the Job Screening, up or out Rules, and Firm Growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 346-368, May.
    8. Banks, Jeffrey S. & Sundaram, Rangarajan K., 1998. "Optimal Retention in Agency Problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 293-323, October.
    9. 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.
    10. Kahn, Charles & Huberman, Gur, 1988. "Two-sided Uncertainty and "Up-or-Out" Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 423-444, October.
    11. Carmichael, H Lorne, 1988. "Incentives in Academics: Why Is There Tenure?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 453-472, June.
    12. Manjira Datta & Leonard J. Mirman & Edward E. Schlee, 2002. "Optimal Experimentation in Signal Dependent Decision Problems," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(2), pages 577-608, May.
    13. Arijit Mukherjee, 2008. "Sustaining implicit contracts when agents have career concerns: the role of information disclosure," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 39(2), pages 469-490, June.
    14. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1984. "Matching, Turnover, and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 108-122, February.
    15. Jarque, Arantxa, 2010. "Repeated moral hazard with effort persistence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(6), pages 2412-2423, November.
    16. Harris, Milton & Weiss, Yoram, 1984. "Job Matching with Finite Horizon and Risk Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(4), pages 758-779, August.
    17. Waldman, Michael, 1990. "Up-or-Out Contracts: A Signaling Perspective," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 230-250, April.
    18. Michael Waldman, 2003. "Ex Ante versus Ex Post Optimal Promotion Rules: The Case of Internal Promotion," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 27-41, January.
    19. Bull, Clive & Tedeschi, Piero, 1985. "Optimal Probation for New Hires," Working Papers 85-01, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    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. Braz Camargo & Elena Pastorino, 2016. "Learning-by-Employing: The Value of Commitment under Uncertainty," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 581-620.

    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. Braz Camargo & Elena Pastorino, 2016. "Learning-by-Employing: The Value of Commitment under Uncertainty," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 581-620.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Xin Jin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Not Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 0314, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    4. Glazer, Amihai, 2012. "Up-or-out policies when a worker imitates another," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 432-438.
    5. Jin, Xin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Note Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," MPRA Paper 58484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Robert Gibbons, 1996. "Incentives and Careers in Organizations," NBER Working Papers 5705, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Heski Bar-Isaac, 2004. "Something to Prove: Reputation in teams and hiring to introduce uncertainty," Working Papers 04-07, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    8. Radoslawa Nikolowa & Daniel Ferreira, 2018. "How to Sell Jobs," Working Papers 846, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    9. Chia-Hui Chen & Junichiro Ishida, 2015. "A Tenure-Clock Problem," ISER Discussion Paper 0919, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    10. Suman Ghosh & Michael Waldman, 2010. "Standard promotion practices versus up‐or‐out contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 301-325, June.
    11. Jeff Borland & Jenny Lye, 1996. "Matching and Mobility in the Market for Australian Rules Football Coaches," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 50(1), pages 143-158, October.
    12. Hakenes, Hendrik & Katolnik, Svetlana, 2017. "On the incentive effects of job rotation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 424-441.
    13. James B. Rebitzer & Lowell J. Taylor, 2007. "When Knowledge Is an Asset: Explaining the Organizational Structure of Large Law Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(2), pages 201-229.
    14. Chia‐Hui Chen & Junichiro Ishida, 2018. "Dynamic performance evaluation with deadlines: The role of commitment," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 377-422, June.
    15. Edward P. Lazear, 1991. "Labor Economics and the Psychology of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 89-110, Spring.
    16. Siegert, Caspar & Trepper, Piers, 2015. "Optimal tolerance for failure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 41-55.
    17. Yasushi Ohkusa, 2001. "An Empirical Examination of the Quit Behavior of Professional Baseball Players in Japan," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(1), pages 80-88, February.
    18. Waldman, Michael, 2013. "Classic promotion tournaments versus market-based tournaments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 198-210.
    19. Daniel Gibbs, 2019. "Selection rates and bureaucratic performance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 159-181, June.
    20. Carolyn Pitchik, 2008. "Self-Promoting Investments," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(3), pages 381-406, September.
    21. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Employment;

    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:fip:fedmsr:475. 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.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.