To innovate, employees need to develop novel ideas and coordinate with each other to turn these ideas into better products and services. Work outcomes provide signals about employees' abilities to the labor market, and therefore career concerns arise. These can both be 'good' (enhancing...

The Peter Principle captures two stylized facts about hierarchies: first, promotions often place employees into jobs for which they are less well suited than for that previously held. Second, demotions are extremely rare. Why do organizations not correct 'wrong' promotion decision? This paper...

Incentive theory predicts that contract terms should respond to differences in agents' productivities. Firms' practice of anonymous contracts thus appears puzzling. We show that such a quot;one-size-fits-allquot; approach can be reconciled with standard agency theory if careers are marked by...