ESRI Geary Lecture: “Is Pay-For-Performance Effective?”

The second Geary Lecture of 2010 will be given by Professor Canice Prendergast, W. Allen Wallis Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Venue: ESRI, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2
Date: 25/11/2010
Time: 4 p.m.

For the last couple of decades, there has been a large body of work arguing for the widespread use of pay-for-performance as the appropriate means of aligning the interests of workers with those of their employers. This lecture outlines recent contributions to this body of work, and focuses on a number of general themes. First, the successes of pay-for-performance schemes are limited to a small class of agency settings that do not seem to generalise to other settings. Second, the literature has now begun to consider instruments other than pay as the most natural way to align interests. Finally, there is controversial literature in psychology that now challenges the basic assumptions of this strand of economic literature. The talk will review all these recent contributions, and likely directions for future research.

Canice Prendergast, who was a research assistant at the ESRI from 1983 to 1985, is now one of the world’s foremost researchers on workplace incentives and their impact on productivity. He is currently the W. Allen Wallis Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The Geary lecture is organised each year by the ESRI and honours Dr R. C. Geary (1896 –1983), the first Director of the Institute.
This is one of the special events being held during 2010 to mark the Institute’s fiftieth birthday.

Booking
Attendance at the event is free but must be pre-booked. There are a limited number of places available and early booking is encouraged. To book a place, please send details of attendee’s name, organisation and contact telephone number by email to admin@esri.ie.

Report on Macroeconomic Policy and Effective Fiscal and Economic Governance

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service’s report on a new fiscal framework is now available.   It can be downloaded here (MS Word file).   Unfortunately, Philip Lane’s background report for the Committee does not appear to be available for download at this time.

Update (from Philip): The full report (including the background paper that I prepared) is now available in PDF here.

Economists Propose Mortgage Debt Relief

Economists Constantin Gurdgiev, Brian Lucey, Stephen Kinsella, Ronan Lyons, Karl Deeter, Shane Whelan, David Madden, Brendan McElroy, Valerio Poti and John D Masson suggest a way to provide relief to stressed mortgage holders. 

UNDP Human Development Index

Ireland’s high ranking on the UNDP Human Development Index attracted relatively little attention in the press, whose focus is understandably on gloomier matters.

I am sure readers of this Blog will find much to discuss in the Report.

Responding to the Jobs Crisis: Dan O’Brien Sums Up

Dan O’Brien concludes the excellent Irish Times series on policies to tackle the jobs and unemployment crisis (article here).   He makes substantiive proposals in each of the areas focused on over the week: activation, training, and the benefits system.   Interestingly he calls for a small focused team with appropriate expertise to examine blueprints for a more effective policy regime.

Putting together a joined-up jobs policy is a big task, but blueprints are available from other small northern Europe countries. A three-person team with a remit to report on policy in three months could do this. It would require a labour market expert, an organisational change specialist and a capable former civil servant who knows the system.

The two papers referenced in the article are available here (Grubb et al (2009), “Activation Policies in Ireland”) and here (Forfas, 2010, “Review of Labour Market Programmes”).