Edward P. Lazear – författare

How should firms select their employees? How should they design their compensation schemes such that employees are motivated to work hard? How do the performance and compensation of teammates influence workers' motivation and productivity? Personnel economics examines human resource practices and answers questions that are of paramount importance for business leaders around the globe. In this volume, Edward P. Lazear, a founding father of personnel economics and winner of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2004, takes stock of the economic analysis of personnel management, and the advancements and achievements that have been made in this field over the past 30 years. The book contains an impressive selection of Lazear's most important papers. It provides a unifying approach to human resource practices and a useful reference on personnel strategies such as hiring, motivating, and training an effective work force.

How should firms select their employees? How should they design their compensation schemes such that employees are motivated to work hard? How do the performance and compensation of teammates influence workers' motivation and productivity? Personnel economics examines human resource practices and answers questions that are of paramount importance for business leaders around the globe. In this volume, Edward P. Lazear, a founding father of personnel economics and winner of the IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2004, takes stock of the economic analysis of personnel management, and the advancements and achievements that have been made in this field over the past 30 years. The book contains an impressive selection of Lazear's most important papers. It provides a unifying approach to human resource practices and a useful reference on personnel strategies such as hiring, motivating, and training an effective work force.

Allocation of Income within the Household develops an important new economic model of income distribution within the family, one that attempts to determine which family characteristics affect spending patterns. Professors Lazear and Michael base their work on an analysis of the 1972-73 Consumer Expenditure Survey and test their conclusions against the 1960-61 survey to verify the persistence of the effects discovered. They find, for example, that the average household spends $38 per child for every $100 spent per adult and that the level of relative and absolute expenditure on the child rises with the level of education of the head of the household. Lazear and Michael also explore the implications their study may hold for the process of determining child support payments in households that dissolve. They argue that, unless the spending of every dollar can be monitored, alimony cannot be disentangled from child support. They also develop several criteria by which income might be distributed among family members, and, using one of those criteria, they present a series of tables that suggest the appropriate payment from one parent to another given family size, structure, and income level. Their model is particularly useful because it takes account of the ways other family members who were not part of the original household may contribute income to the new household. Other issues considered include the appropriate way to deal with children with special needs and the timing of transfer payments.

The distribution of income, the rate of pay raises, and the mobility of employees is crucial to understanding labor economics. Although research abounds on the distribution of wages across individuals in the economy, wage differentials within firms remain a mystery to economists. The first effort to examine linked employer-employee data across countries, "The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison" analyzes labor trends and their institutional background in the United States and eight European countries.A distinguished team of contributors reveal how a rising wage variance rewards star employees at a higher rate than ever before, how talent becomes concentrated in a few firms over time, and how outside market conditions affect wages in the twenty-first century. From a comparative perspective that examines wage and income differences within and between countries such as Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands, this volume will be required reading for economists and those working in industrial organizations.

Personnel Economics in Practice, 3rd Edition by Edward Lazear and Michael Gibbs gives readers a rigorous framework for understanding organizational design and the management of employees.  Economics has proven to be a powerful approach in the changing study of organizations and human resources by adding rigor and structure and clarifying many important issues.  Not only will readers learn and apply ideas from microeconomics, they will also learn principles that will be valuable in their future careers.

Over the past twenty years or so there has been a marked increase in the study of personnel issues by labour economists. These studies have explored such topics as incentives, compensation methods, human resource strategies and institutional structures, and have provided an insightful empirical literature rich in the creative use of new data. In these two volumes, the editors bring together many of the theoretical papers which were key in establishing personnel economics as a discipline within economics, as well as a selection of empirical studies which have been important in developing an understanding of the economics of human resource issues. The editors have written an authoritative introduction to complement their selection.