Group-based incentives are attractive in contexts where production is interdependent. Prior work shows such incentives increase group performance despite freeriding concerns, yet little is known about the effort response of individuals. Using individual-level data, the authors assess the introduction of group-based performance pay using difference-in-difference estimation. Overall, performance increased by 19%. Nearly all workers contributed to this effect. Further, two-thirds of this effect stems from increased efficiency (more output per unit of time) and one-third from higher attendance. Both incentive and selection effects are present. By leveraging individual-level data, the authors pose new questions and evidence to the group-based incentives literature.

We examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty using survey data. First, we uncover heterogeneity in the immediate effects on research productivity and burnout. Three groups emerged (Career Accelerated, Career Insulated, and Career Headwinds) with female faculty disproportionately represented in Career Headwinds, experiencing both high burnout and declines in research productivity. Second, we examine how greater caregiving demands at home and at work—in the form of institutional service—contribute to gender differences. We find female faculty reported greater increases in service demands, and these exerted greater drag on their careers through a larger crowd out of research time.

Research Summary: To grow, startup ventures often require the skills of professional managers familiar with running larger organizations. However, risk considerations may discourage such candidates from departing high-paying, stable jobs. Interpreting the manager's decision within a household holding a “portfolio” of jobs, we hypothesize that having a spouse whose career is prioritized mitigates risk as a barrier to joining a startup. Survey data corroborate that both men and women with a career-prioritized spouse are less likely to report risk as a barrier. However, having a career-prioritized spouse only translates to a greater interest in startup employment among men. Our findings have implications for understanding the challenges startup ventures face when attracting managerial talent, how dual careers and gender affect managers' careers, and regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. Managerial Summary: Using survey data from professional managers working in corporate headquarters, we show that being in a dual-career household increases one's willingness and lowers the perceived risk of leaving their job and joining a startup venture—especially if the household prioritizes their spouse's career. However, the increased willingness to join a startup in households that prioritize their spouse's career is only manifest for men. These findings highlight how dual-career households can be a talent source for startup ventures and suggest that regions with greater concentrations of dual-career households might be especially advantageous for startup ventures. Nevertheless, our results also suggest that gender norms are an impediment for dual-career women when considering employment in startup ventures.

The relationship between retirement plan type and job mobility is more complex than typically considered. While differences in plan features and benefit structure may directly affect employees’ mobility decisions (“incentive effect”), the type of plan offered may also affect the types of employees a given employer attracts (“selection effect”), thereby affecting mobility through a second, indirect channel. At the same time, some employees may not be able to accurately assess differences between plan types due to limited financial literacy. These factors have implications for policymakers and employers considering retirement plan offerings.

Defaults have been shown to have a powerful effect on retirement saving behavior yet there is limited research on who is most affected by defaults and whether this varies based on features of the choice environment. Using administrative data on employer-sponsored retirement accounts linked to survey data, we estimate the relationship between retirement saving choices and individual characteristics – long-term discounting, present bias, financial literacy, and exponential growth bias – under two distinct choice environments: an opt-in regime and an auto-enrollment regime. Consistent with our conceptual model, we find that the determinants of following the default and contribution behavior are regime-specific. Under the opt-in regime, financial literacy plays an important role in predicting total contributions, active saving choices, and maxing out contributions in the tax-preferred account. In contrast, under the auto-enrollment regime, present bias is the most significant behavioral predictor of contribution behavior. A causal interpretation of the estimates suggests that auto-enrollment increases saving primarily among those with low financial literacy.

In a nationally-representative sample, we predict retirement savings using survey- based elicitations of exponential-growth bias (EGB) and present bias (PB). We find that EGB, the tendency to neglect compounding, and PB, the tendency to value the present over the future, are highly significant and economically meaningful predictors of retirement savings. These relationships hold controlling for cognitive ability, financial literacy, and a rich set of demographic controls. We address measurement error as a potential confound and explore mechanisms through which these biases may operate. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that eliminating EGB and PB would increase retirement savings by approximately 12 percent.