Gift Exchange and Workers’ Fairness Concerns: When Equality Is Unfair We study how different payment modes influence the effectiveness of gift exchange as a contract enforcement device. In particular, we analyze how horizontal fairness concerns affect performance and efficiency in an environment characterized by contractual incompleteness. In our experiment, one principal is matched with two ag...

This paper models two key roles of subjective performance evaluations: their incentive role and their feedback role. The paper shows that the feedback role makes subjective pay feasible even without repeated interaction, as long as there exists some veri…able measure of performance. It also shows that while subjective pay is helpful, it cannot achieve full e¢ ciency. However, fully e¢ cient inc...

Without contracting or repetition, purely self-regarding agents will not trade. To what extent can social preferences, such as altruism or a concern for fairness, generate efficient bilateral exchange? I analyze a simple exchange game: A purely self-regarding first mover transfers some amount of a commodity to a second mover. Then the second mover, who has social preferences defined over materi...

We explore how the internal use of non-GAAP performance metrics in compensation contracting relates to the disclosure of non-GAAP earnings to external stakeholders. Ex ante, it is unclear why information useful in contracting would be informative for valuation purposes unless a firm’s compensation and financial disclosure processes are related. We explore this relation using a large hand-collec...

Equality under Threat by the Talented: Evidence from Worker-Managed Firms Are high-ability individuals more likely to quit egalitarian regimes? Does the threat of exit by talented individuals restrict the redistributive capacity of democratic organizations? This paper revisits that long-standing debate by analyzing the interplay between compensation structure and quit behavior in the distinct y...

Peer Pressure and Productivity: The Role of Observing and Being Observed Peer effects arise in situations where workers observe each other’s work activity. In this paper we disentangle the effect of observing a peer from that of being observed by a peer, by setting up a real effort experiment in which we manipulate the observability of performance. In particular, we randomize subjects into thre...

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the electromagnetic field (EMF) generated by 10 kV (50 Hz) high voltage line on the epididymal sperm characteristics and the protective effects of ganoderma lucidum (GL) and melatonin (M) in EMF exposed male rats. Materials and Methods: In this study, 64 Wistar rats were divided into 8 groups (n= 8). Rats in 26-day and 52-day ex...

I study how the distribution of CEO talent and that of CEO compensation vary across industries, and how product market characteristics affect these distributions. I develop a general equilibrium model that incorporates the competitive assignment of CEOs to firms in a framework in which firms engage in imperfect product market—specifically, monopolistic—competition. I use the model to address th...

BACKGROUND Family 11 alkaline xylanases have great potential economic applications in the pulp and paper industry. In this study, we would improve the alkalophilicity of family 11 alkaline xylanase Xyn11A-LC from Bacillus sp. SN5, for the better application in this field. RESULTS A random mutation library of Xyn11A-LC with about 10,000 clones was constructed by error-prone PCR. One mutant, M5...

To evaluate the role of putative group A streptococcal virulence factors in the initiation of skin infections, we compared the adherence of a wild-type M49-protein skin-associated strain to that of a series of 16 isogenic mutants created by insertional inactivation of virulence genes. None of the mutants, including the M-protein-deficient (emm mutant) strain, displayed reduced adherence to earl...