Download or read book The Empirical Effects of Performance Contracts written by Mary M. Shirley and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May 1998 On average, performance contracts do not improve productivity in China's state enterprises and may even reduce it. But when they contain all the right features-managerial bonds, profit orientation, higher wage elasticity, and lower markup ratios-performance contracts can boost a firm's productivity growth rate by an estimated 10 percent. Performance contracts are widely used to reform state-owned enterprises. By June 1994, there were 565 such contracts in 32 developing countries, used principally to reform large utilities and other monopolies, and roughly another 103,000 in China, where they are also used to reform state manufacturing enterprises. A performance contract is a written agreement between the manager of a state enterprise (who promises to achieve specific targets in a certain time frame) and government (which-usually-promises to award achievement with a bonus or other incentive). Performance contracts are a variant of the pay-for-performance or incentive contracts often used to motivate managers in the private sector. In the public sector, they are viewed as a device to reveal information and motivate managers to exert effort. Shirley and Xu analyze China's experience with performance contracts in more than 400 state enterprises. China is a good place for such a study because no country has ever used them on such a scale or with such a variety of enterprises (mostly in the competitive sector). China also uses many different kinds of contracts, with different targets (more profit-, tax-, or output-oriented). Shirley and Xu find that performance contracts * On average, do not improve productivity in China's state enterprises and may even reduce it. * Are ineffective in competitive firms as well as monopolies. * Do more harm when they provide only weak incentives and when they do not reduce information asymmetry. They find no connection between variables for commitment and the effects of performance contracts. Design matters. When performance contracts contain all the good features-profit orientation, higher wage elasticity, and lower markup ratios-the firm's productivity growth rate could increase as much as 10 percent. The Chinese government was serious about implementing performance contracts, and used measures considerably more radical than other countries used, hailing the contract system as the official national mode for reforming state enterprises. But most of the contracts have had little or no effect on growth rates and the observed frequency of contracts with good provisions is exceedingly low. Perhaps the political economy of incentive contracts in government settings merits further study. Political considerations may preclude the design of incentive contracts for government actors that could produce the sort of productivity gains some private firms have achieved. One observer (Byrd 1991) points out that the central government gave local governments a good deal of discretion in implementing performance contracts and local governments had a tendency to adopt the lowest common denominator, a bare-bones performance contract. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to understand state enterprises. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].

Download or read book The Empirical Effects of Performance Contracts written by Mary M. Shirley and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On average, performance c ...

Download or read book The Empirical Effects of Performance Contracts written by Shirley and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Empirical Effects of Performance Contracts written by Mary M. Shirley and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Performance contracts (PCs) - contracts signed between the government and state enterprise managers - have been used widely in developing countries. China's experience with such contracts was one of the largest experiments with contracting in the public sector, affecting hundreds of thousands of state firms, and offered a rare opportunity to explore how PCs work. On average, PCs did not improve performance and may have made it worse. But China's PCs were not uniformly bad; in fact, PCs improved productivity in slightly more than half of the participants. PC effects were on average negative because of the large losses associated with poorly designed PCs. Successful PCs were those that featured sensible targets, stronger incentives, longer terms, managerial bonds, and were in more competitive industries. Selecting managers through bidding was not associated with performance improvement. Good PC features were more often observed in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the oversight of local governments, that faced more competition, that were smaller in size, and that had better previous performance.

Download or read book Effects of incentive employment contracts on performance and information revelation empirical evidence written by Leslie Kren and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Effects of Incentive Employment Contracts of Performance and Information Revelation written by Leslie Kren and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics written by Philippe Aghion and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1986 article by Sanford J. Grossman and Oliver D. Hart titled "A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration" has provided a framework for understanding how firm boundaries are defined and how they affect economic performance. The property rights approach has provided a formal way to introduce incomplete contracting ideas into economic modeling. The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics collects papers and opinion pieces on the impact that this property right approach to the firm has had on the economics profession.

Download or read book An Empirical Examination of Managerial Performance Contracts written by Laura T. Starks and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Effect of Pay for performance Contracts on Wages written by Parent, Daniel and published by Montréal : CIRANO. This book was released on 2001 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on the Empirical Implications of Performance Pay Contracts written by Bok Hoong Young Hoon and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Understanding Psychological Contracts at Work written by Neil Conway and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-11-17 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we understand the relationship between employer and employee? What determines the give and take of such relationships and what happens when they go wrong? This book is the first to provide a comprehensive and critical overview of what is now the major way of trying to understand the employment relationship - the concept of the psychological contract. Written contracts often specify very little in terms of the important details about what we are prepared to do for our employer and what we want back in return. The psychological contract considers these implicit or unwritten aspects of the employment relationship. What do employees really expect from work? What happens when the contract, or 'the deal', with their employer is broken? How well does the psychological contract help us understand what happens at work between an employee and their employer? Is the idea of practical value in managing employees? How can our understanding of this important concept be developed in the future? Starting with a history of the concept, from its emergence in the 1960s through to it finding wider acceptance in the 1990s, the authors trace the conflicting and changing definitions of the psychological contract. The shifting meaning of the concept allows possible methodological and conceptual weaknesses of the psychological contract to be explored, such as the conceptual emphasis on process within the employment relationship, which has so far been neglected by researchers. The authors start to address this issue by considering whether employees and employers can use what is known about the psychological contract to better manage the employment relationship. Written to provide a comprehensive yet critical introduction to the topic, Understanding Psychological Contracts at Work will be key reading for advanced students, lecturers, and researchers in Organizational Psychology, Organization Studies, Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Occupational Psychology; and professionals and practitioners in Occupational Psychology, Management Consultancy, Human Resource Management, Careers and Career Management, Career Counselling, Workplace Training.

Download or read book Contract and Commercial Management The Operational Guide written by Katherine Kawamoto and published by Van Haren. This book was released on 2011-11-11 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost 80% of CEOs say that their organization must get better at managing external relationships. According to The Economist, one of the major reasons why so many relationships end in disappointment is that most organizations 'are not very good at contracting'. This ground-breaking title from leading authority IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management) represents the collective wisdom and experience of Contract, Legal and Commercial experts from some of the world s leading companies to define how to partner for performance. This practical guidance is designed to support practitioners through the contract lifecycle and to give both supply and buy perspectives, leading to a more consistent approach and language that supports greater efficiency and effectiveness. Within the five phases described in this book (Initiate, Bid, Development, Negotiate and Manage), readers will find invaluable guidance on the whole lifecycle with insights to finance, law and negotiation, together with dispute resolution, change control and risk management. This title is the official IACCM operational guidance and fully supports and aligns with the course modules for Certification.

Download or read book Essays on Contracting written by ORIE NEHEMIA SHELEF and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contracts are an economic tool used to arrange transactions which are not tradable in simple spot markets. This thesis focuses on the implications of different kinds of contracts to understand behavior in complicated interactions. The first part of this thesis focuses on explicit formal contracts that provide non-linear payoffs and examines theoretically and empirically the implications for effort and risk-taking. The second part of this thesis focuses in contrast on implicit contracts. Starting from a theoretical perspective about how implicit contracts for influence buying might work in a setting that precludes explicit contracts. This helps explains empirical puzzles as well as has new predictions. I then show empirical evidence consistent with the predictions. In the first part, I explore managerial incentive contracts. Managerial incentives induce risk-taking as well as effort. Theoretical research has long considered risk-taking a potential side effect of incentives, but empirical investigation is limited. This thesis first develops nuanced predictions about how contracts in use in many industries induce risk-taking and effort. The contracts considered match closely those used in real-world contracts. The thesis then uses exogenous variation in hedge fund manager's incentives, one of the settings where these contracts are used, to examine both performance and risk-taking. I find that, consistent with theory, being farther below a key incentive threshold increases risk-taking and decreases performance. On average, a manager's risk-taking increases 50 percent and their performance falls 2.1 percentage points when he is below the incentive threshold. I also show, consistent with the theoretical predictions, risk-taking behavior is non-monotonic; very distant managers take less risk and perform better than less distant managers. Further, I examine the role of organizational features in impacting the responsiveness to explicit incentives and the mechanisms managers use to increase risk. My results highlight the importance of risk-taking in response to incentives designed to induce effort and inform empirical research, contract design, practitioners, and policy makers. The results also show that moral hazard, not just selection, is an important determination of manager performance. In the second part, I explore contracts for influence buying. Existing empirical evidence that finds very high actual or potential return to some campaign contributions and wonders, if contributions buy influence, why more exchange does not occur. Other empirical work has found consistent long-term relationships of contributions from interest groups to politicians. Yet, models of influence buying have treated the exchange as a simple spot transaction. This paper develops a formal model of relational influence buying between a firm and a politician where campaign contributions are exchanged for policy favors in a self-enforcing contract. This contract provides several insights. First, not all favors that have positive joint surplus to the firm and politician are contractible. Second, the model predicts that horizons of politicians will reduce the ability to raise funds. Third, the model provides empirical predictions for when firms should lobby themselves or outsource and on the structure of legislation. The first can explain why more, apparently valuable, trade does not occur. I find evidence consistent with the horizon effects from US Congress people's age and term limits in US state legislatures. The third insight speaks both to potential regulatory implications and implications for managers' influence activities. Finally, the insights from the model suggest empirical tools to detect influence buying without directly observing the favors.

Download or read book Logistics Outsourcing Relationships written by Jan M. Deepen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-06-13 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses state-of-the-art scientific methods to reveal that most firms currently do not realize the full potential of logistics outsourcing. It shows the complexity of outsourcing performance and that its true drivers lie in the relationship between service providers and their customers. Through the results of a large-scale empirical survey, the book also emphasizes the importance of a firm's approach towards outsourcing.

Download or read book The Effects of Financing Contracts Characteristics and Contracts Portfolio Diversification on Banks Perfomance written by Riyad Khadija and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Regional Groupings Among Microstates written by Soamiely Andriamananjara and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May 1998 This model shows that a microstate's decision to form, expand, or join a regional organization is based on reduced negotiating costs and increased bargaining power, rather than on the traditional costs and benefits of trade integration. Forming a regional grouping with neighboring nations may be one way for microstates to overcome a major problem: Because of their weak bargaining power and high fixed costs of negotiation, microstates are at a severe disadvantage in dealing with the rest of the world. They don't have the human and physical resources to unilaterally conduct the various bilateral and multilateral negotiations a developing nation typically conducts. Andriamananjara and Schiff present a model in which the decision to form, expand, or join a regional club is based on reduced negotiating costs and increased bargaining power, rather than on the traditional costs and benefits of trade integration (which might be miniscule for a microstate and might even generate welfare losses). Under various conditions for entry, the model is used to determine the equilibrium group size, which is shown to be positively correlated with the number of issues to be tackled, the degree of similarity among countries, and the per-issue costs of international negotiation. They use the case of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to show the model's relevance in the real world. The countries that belong to CARICOM pooled their negotiating resources and formulated common policy stances. Despite its relatively limited impact on trade and investments, CARICOM served as a political instrument in joint negotiations on trade and investment with larger countries and regional trade blocs. By establishing a union, the CARICOM countries succeeded in making their voices heard on a variety of issues in a way none of them could have done alone. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to examine the economics of regionalism and development. Maurice Schiff may be contacted at [email protected].

Download or read book The 1997 Pension Reform in Mexico written by Gloria M. Grandolini and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1998 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 1998 Under Mexico's reformed pension system, private pension funds could become the single largest financial industry in a decade. Their efficiency and investment returns will profoundly affect the welfare of retirees, the finances of government, the development of capital markets, and the rate of savings. In 1995-96, Mexico shifted to a multipillar approach to old-age security. The objective of the publicly managed first pillar is redistribution; a fully-funded second pillar provides for mandatory individual savings accounts and competitive but exclusive and specialized pension fund management; the third pillar is voluntary savings. This package could provide effective income security and protection against old-age poverty, in a manner compatible with goals of savings and economic growth. It offers Mexico's first real opportunity to shift to a defined-contribution model and to expand and deepen domestic capital markets by creating a new class of institutional investors-although in the short term its impact on capital markets will be limited by the need to focus on the security of pension fund investments. The reformed system provides for a probably irreversible shift toward private intermediation of most domestic investment funds. Further efforts to improve the pension system should encourage efficiency, confidence, and economies of scale. There are weaknesses in Mexico's pension design-especially the limited scope for workers in the private sector, the continued role of the housing-fund component, and the moral hazard implications of the lifetime-switch option. But Mexico achieved radical reform with its pension system within a difficult political and economic environment. And the timing of reform was appropriate. The age structure in the existing system is very young, so coverage could increase. Also, reform took place after the inflationary 1980s and the recent financial crisis, which eroded the real value of old pensions, the acquired pension rights of the transition generation, and the minimum pension for minimum-wage retirees. If returns on invested contributions are high enough, much of the transition generation will choose the defined-contribution alternative over the old pay-as-you-go system. This will release the government from pension liabilities, except for the minimum pension guarantee for new affiliates. Ensuring the system's long-term success will require improved financial performance from INFONAVIT, the authorities' political will and technical ability to enforce pension laws and regulations, and the system's flexibility in the face of changing circumstances. This paper-a product of the Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office-is part of a larger effort to study contractual savings development in Latin America. Gloria Grandolini may be contacted at [email protected].