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Author: Moore, Carol S.
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Bronars, Stephen G.
Moore, Carol S.
Incentive Pay, Information, and Earnings: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
NLS Discussion Paper No. 95-23, Washington DC: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 1995.
Also: http://stats.bls.gov/ore/abstract/nl/nl950020.htm
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: U.S. Department of Labor
Keyword(s): Benefits, Fringe; Educational Attainment; Job Requirements; Layoffs; Modeling; Quits; Wage Growth

Incentive pay mechanisms, such as piece rates, bonuses, tips, profit sharing and commissions base an employee's pay on her individual productivity and not merely her time input. Incentive pay (IP) is expected to play an important role in mitigating the problems of incomplete and asymmetric information in internal labor markets. The key economic insight of this proposal is that jobs which offer IP have relatively lower costs of monitoring a worker's marginal revenue product or performance. Thus a comparison of IP and time-wage jobs can yield a number of empirical tests of information-based models of the labor market. In this proposal we outline empirical tests of information-based models of discrimination and wage-tenure profiles that rely on comparisons of the earnings and employment histories of workers in IP and time-wage jobs.
Bibliography Citation
Bronars, Stephen G. and Carol S. Moore. "Incentive Pay, Information, and Earnings: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth." NLS Discussion Paper No. 95-23, Washington DC: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 1995.
2. Moore, Carol S.
Information in the Labor Market: Empirical Studies of Incentive Pay, Work Hours, and Earnings
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 1994
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Earnings; Ethnic Differences; Gender Differences; Hispanics; Industrial Relations; Labor Economics; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Occupational Choice; Occupational Status; Skilled Workers; Work Hours/Schedule

This dissertation tests models of information in the labor market using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). "Do Monitoring Costs Explain Positive Returns to Tenure? Evidence from Incentive Pay Earners," assesses the role of monitoring costs in internal labor markets using NLSY data on method of pay. Several models predict that employers deter shirking by combining positive wage-tenure profiles with the threat of dismissal when monitoring costs are high. Because incentive pay bases a worker's pay explicitly on individual performance, incentive pay jobs have relatively low costs of monitoring worker performance. A fixed effects model is estimated by following wages for up to six years on the job. Contrary to the predictions of the monitoring costs model, incentive pay wages grow faster on the job than do time-rate wages. "Information, Incentive Pay, and Labor Market Discrimination," documents racial and gender differences in method of pay and in incentive pay wages. Results are considered in light of statistical and customer discrimination models. The scope for statistical discrimination is smaller where incentive pay is offered, so that skilled women and minorities may exhibit especially high returns to incentive pay in production jobs. Customer discrimination suggests that women and minorities experience depressed returns to incentive pay in customer-oriented service and sales jobs in which they are not traditionally represented. Models of occupational choice, method of pay, and earnings across and within occupations are estimated. Racial and gender wage gaps are found to be no smaller under incentive pay than under time rate systems in production jobs. However, evidence of customer discrimination is found for women and blacks in customer-oriented service jobs, and for Hispanics in sales jobs. "Economies of Agglomeration and Productivity: The Role of Starting Time," tests for economies of agglomeration by estimating the relationship between wages and work start time. A model is developed in which the concentration of start times around the peak exerts two mutually offsetting effects on productivity: economies of agglomeration and diminishing returns to labor. The empirical results imply that economies of agglomeration dominate diminishing returns across occupations and for managers and professionals.
Bibliography Citation
Moore, Carol S. Information in the Labor Market: Empirical Studies of Incentive Pay, Work Hours, and Earnings. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 1994.