【主讲】Tracy Xiao Liu 助教授 (清华大学经济与管理学院)
【主题】Right Contract for Right Workers?
【时间】2014年1月13日 (周一) 13：30-15：00
【地点】上海财经大学经济学院楼801室
【语言】英文
【摘要】It is well observed that companies design different contracts for regular staff and temporary workers. Different contract choices include: an explicit incentive contract, e.g. piece rate; an implicit incentive contract, e.g. "fixed wage+ bonus", where bonus is voluntary and unspecified; and finally "fixed wage only" contract. Preliminary evidence from a Word Bank survey of a large sample of Chinese companies shows that firms are more likely to choose a "fixed+bonus" contract for long-term workers while choose piece-rate for short-term workers. We developed a theoretical model of principal contract choice, wage offers, and agent effort and conduct a real-effort experiment to study the effect of long-term relationship as well as the role of bonus in "fixed+bonus" contract. Specifically, we find that 40% principals choose the "fixed wage+bonus" contract for long-term workers and this implicit contract is as effective as piece-rate. In contrast, piece-rate is dominantly chosen for short-term workers and it is the only effective mechanism for workers' productivity. Additionally, we find that the attractiveness of "fixed wage+bonus" disappears when bonus is not available, suggesting that fixed payment alone cannot be an effective mechanism to improve workers' performance.
