Economics 338 - Compensation, Incentives & Pro

The goal of this course is to use the analytic tools of microeconomic theory to study the worker-firm employment relationship. We will draw from research in labor economics, the economics of organizations, and the emerging field of personnel economics to analyze topics such as the ways in which firms design compensation systems to overcome principal-agent problems; non-monetary compensation and benefits; firm hiring strategies; training, turnover and the theory of human capital; promotion tournaments and other incentive schemes; layoffs and buyouts; team production and diversity in teams; employee ownership; worker empowerment in the form of delegation of authority and worker participation in firm decision-making; and workplace equity. Material will include both theoretical and empirical work, including some recent state-of-the-art research in the area.

MATH 127, ECON 203, RESEC 202 Open only to Econ/STPEC/ResEc/MgrEcon primary majors, then open to all on April 14.