IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0871.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimum Contracts for Research Personnel, Research Employment, and the Establishment of "Rival" Enterprises

Author

Listed:
  • Ariel Pakes
  • Shmuel Nitzan

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of hiring scientists for research and development projects when one takes explicit account of the fact that the scientist may be able to use the information acquired during the project in a rival enterprise. Management's problem is to determine an optimum labor policy for its project. The policy consists of an employment decision and a labor contract. Given optimum behavior, it is straightforward to analyze the effect of the potential for mobility of scientific personnel on project profitability and on research employment. We also formalize conditions under which one would expect to observe a scientist leaving his employer to set up (or join) a rival.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariel Pakes & Shmuel Nitzan, 1982. "Optimum Contracts for Research Personnel, Research Employment, and the Establishment of "Rival" Enterprises," NBER Working Papers 0871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0871
    Note: LS PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0871.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & George J. Stigler, 1974. "Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of Enforcers," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Nickell, Stephen J, 1976. "Wage Structures and Quit Rates," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 17(1), pages 191-203, February.
    3. Lazear, Edward P, 1979. "Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1261-1284, December.
    4. Dale T. Mortensen, 1978. "Specific Capital and Labor Turnover," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 572-586, Autumn.
    5. George Akerlof, 1976. "The Economics of Caste and of the Rat Race and Other Woeful Tales," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 599-617.
    6. Joanne Salop & Steven C. Salop, 1976. "Self-selection and turnover in the labor market," Special Studies Papers 80, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1974. "Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(2), pages 219-255.
    8. Partha Dasgupta & Joseph Stiglitz, 1980. "Uncertainty, Industrial Structure, and the Speed of R&D," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 1-28, Spring.
    9. Kenneth Arrow, 1962. "Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention," NBER Chapters, in: The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors, pages 609-626, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Gaskins, Darius Jr., 1971. "Dynamic limit pricing: Optimal pricing under threat of entry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 306-322, September.
    11. Ross, Stephen A, 1973. "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 134-139, May.
    12. A. Michael Spence, 1975. "The Economics of Internal Organization: An Introduction," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(1), pages 163-172, Spring.
    13. Richard R. Nelson, 1959. "The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 297-297.
    14. Peter Temin, 1979. "Technology, Regulation, and Market Structure in the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(2), pages 429-446, Autumn.
    15. Joanne Salop & Steven Salop, 1976. "Self-Selection and Turnover in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 619-627.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John Haltiwanger & Michael Waldman, 1984. "Insurance Aspects of Labor Market Contracting: An Overview," UCLA Economics Working Papers 348, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2004. "Performance, seniority, and wages: formal salary systems and individual earnings profiles," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 741-763, December.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 1986. "Incentive Contracts," NBER Working Papers 1917, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Estimating the Employer Switching Costs and Wage Responses of Forward-Looking Engineers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 357-412, April.
    7. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    8. Jacob Mincer, 1989. "Job Training: Costs, Returns, and Wage Profiles," NBER Working Papers 3208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Roumasset, James A., 1994. "Explaining Diversity In Agricultural Organization: An Agency Perspective," Bulletins 12982, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    10. Edward P. Lazear, 1999. "Personnel Economics: Past Lessons and Future Directions," NBER Working Papers 6957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Haltiwanger, John & Waldman, Michael, 1986. "Insurance and Labor Market Contracting: An Analysis of the Capital Market Assumption," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 355-375, July.
    12. John Haltiwanger & Michael Waldman, 1983. "Why Bad Wokers Receive Raises," UCLA Economics Working Papers 301, UCLA Department of Economics.
    13. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    14. Daniel Vuuren, 2014. "Flexible Retirement," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 573-593, July.
    15. Lazear, Edward P, 1999. "Personnel Economics: Past Lessons and Future Directions: Presidential Address to the Society of Labor Economists, San Francisco, May 1, 1998," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 199-236, April.
    16. Devereux, Paul J & Hart, Robert A & Roberts, J Elizabeth, 2013. "Job spells, employer spells, and wage returns to tenure," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2013-01, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    17. Huizinga, H.P., 1996. "Intrafirm Information Transfer and Wages," Other publications TiSEM e39998b3-304d-485b-b186-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    19. Michael Spence, 2002. "Signaling in Retrospect and the Informational Structure of Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 434-459, June.
    20. Alan B. Krueger, 1987. "Ownership, Agency and Wages: An Examination of the Fast Food Industry," Working Papers 606, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    21. Huizinga, Harry, 2000. "Intrafirm information management and wage dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 163-180, January.
    22. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.

    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:nbr:nberwo:0871. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.