## CH10 – Pay for Performance
1. [[Chapter 10#Principal-Agent Problem|Principal-Agent Problem]]
2. How Incentives Matter
- Reasons underlying incentive design
- Analyze consequences of specific incentive schemes
3. [[Chapter 10#Designing Incentive Compensation|Designing Incentive Compensation]]
- Focus: [[Chapter 10#Strength of Incentives|Strength of Incentives]]
- [[Chapter 10#Adverse Effects of Strong Incentives|Adverse Effects of Strong Incentives]]
4. [[Chapter 10#Factors Affecting Incentive Strength|Factors Affecting Incentive Strength]]
- Accuracy of performance evaluation
- Value of employee effort
- Importance of sorting
- Risk aversion
- Subjective evaluation and trust
5. [[Chapter 10#Multitask Incentives|Multitask Incentives]] & [[Chapter 10#Incentive Compensation in Complex Jobs|Incentive Compensation in Complex Jobs]]
6. [[Chapter 10#Types of Reward Structures|Types of Reward Structures]]
- When to use each structure
- Pros and cons of each
7. The Ratchet Effect
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## CH11 – Career-Based Incentives
1. [[Chapter 11#Pay by Hierarchical Level|Pay by Hierarchical Level]]
- Salary changes by job type: promotion, demotion, lateral transfer
- How pay changes by hierarchical level (graph-based understanding)
- Long-term career prospects as a source of incentives
2. [[Chapter 11#Promotion Rules|Promotion Rules]]
- Tournament vs. Absolute Standard
- Pros and cons of each
3. [[Chapter 11#Relative vs Absolute Performance Evaluation|Relative & Absolute Performance Evaluation]]
- Role of uncontrollable risks (prefer measure with less uncontrollable risk)
- Incentive distortion: sabotage
- Remedies to prevent sabotage from relative performance evaluation
4. [[Chapter 11#Promotion and Incentives|Promotion and Incentives]]
- How effort, evaluation, and rewards are tied together
- Tournament Theory – content and predictions
5. [[Chapter 11#Internal vs External Hiring|Internal vs External Hiring]]
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## CH12 – Options and Executive Pay
1. [[Chapter 12#Basics of Stock Options|Basics of Stock Options]]
- Call option vs. put option
- Option valuation: intrinsic value and Black-Scholes approach
- Be able to calculate intrinsic value; compare with Black-Scholes value
2. [[Chapter 12#Employee Stock Options|Employee Stock Options (ESO's)]]
- [[Chapter 12#Characteristics Compared to Exchange-Traded Options|Characteristics vs. Exchange-Traded Options]]
- Vesting period (typically 3–5 years)
- Not tradable
- Forfeited if employee leaves
- Why ESO value ≠ market-traded option value
- Risk aversion
- Non-tradable
- Undiversified
- Forfeiture risk
- Cost of issuing ESOs: accounting vs. economic perspective
- [[Chapter 12#Why Give Employees Options|Why Give Employees Options]]
3. [[Chapter 12#Executive Compensation|Executive Compensation]]
- [[Chapter 12#Executive Compensation|CEO pay debate – are CEOs paid too much?]]
- Median worker wages (flat after inflation) vs. CEO pay (exponential growth)
- Role of stock options in CEO pay increase
- [[Chapter 12#CEO Pay Debate|Views on executive pay]]
- Principal-agent view
- Rent extraction view
- Alternative explanations: market forces; compensation disclosure & wage comparison
- [[Chapter 12#Reforms|Reforms]]
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## CH3 – Training
1. Human Capital and Human Capital Theory
2. Age-Earnings Profiles
- Earnings rise over the life cycle
- Earnings increase at a decreasing rate (flatter with age)
- Earnings increase faster for more educated workers
3. General vs. Firm-Specific Human Capital; general vs. firm-specific training
4. Who Pays for Firm-Specific Training?
- Holdup problem
- Firms and workers split investment and returns
5. Implications of On-the-Job Training
- Turnover costs to firm and worker
- Workers invest in FSHC when match is good and turnover is low
- Compensation rises with FSHC
- Firm size: more FSHC investment in larger firms
6. Relationship-Specific Investment
- Definition: no value if relationship ends
- Holdup problem as main concern
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## CH4 – Turnover
1. Bidding for Employees
- Asymmetric information & firm-specific knowledge
- When is raiding worthwhile?
- Raider must be certain target worker's value exceeds current firm's value
- Current firm does not overvalue/overpay the worker
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## CH5 – Decision Making
1. Market Metaphor for Organizational Design
- Use market mechanisms internally where practicable
- Good design: uses local knowledge, encourages coordination, provides incentives, encourages innovation
2. Benefits of Centralization vs. Decentralization
3. Specific Knowledge vs. General Knowledge
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## CH9 – Risks & Performance Evaluation
1. Performance Evaluation
- Quantitative performance measures
- Five properties: risk profile, distortion, manipulation, scope, match to job design
- Implications for incentives
- Subjective evaluation
- Typical problems
- Why we use it
- How to avoid typical problems
- Performance evaluation design
- Steps involved
- Questions to ask when evaluating a performance measure