Based on the contract theorem, the thesis studies the wage structure of ¡uThe project of elite recruitment¡vin the industry of real estate in Taiwan.Try to build the model from the view of mechanism design explains why the industry of real estate in Taiwan have ¡uThe project of elite recruitment¡v.In the thesis, begins from the characteristics of Taiwan¡¦s real estate industry to explain the followings about the ¡uThe project of elite recruitment¡v. 1. The employers are willing to recruit and have trainings to those who have no related work experience in the industry of real estate. 2. In the training period, the employers pay the fixed compensation and do not take the incentive compensation as the optimal compensation. 3. The optimal compensation is higher than the reservation compensation in the training period.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

M. Tech. Tourism and Hospitality Management. / Travel is often used to reward those who achieved specific business goals and objectives. Although an incentive travel experience creates unforgettable memories, the process of deciding whether to revisit a destination again is in itself a complex process with many factors influencing the decision. This is even more so in case of an incentive destination, as the incentive traveler usually does not have a choice in selecting the incentive destination. The incentive destination is at the heart of any incentive travel program and constitutes an amalgam of products and service, as well as a series of experiences that the incentive traveler creates. Understanding the influence that the destination experience has on the incentive traveler is therefore of great importance to destination marketers, as many destination marketing organisations view repeat visitors as a stable source of revenue. The primary objective of this study is to gain insight and understanding into the influence of destination experiences on the decision-making process to revisit the incentive destination.

In an effort to motivate contractors to complete construction projects early on high-impact highway pavement construction projects, state transportation agencies (STAs) including TxDOT have often used incentive/disincentive (I/D) contracts. However, determining I/D rates is extremely difficult due largely to the lack of systematic methods for helping STAs determine effective I/D rates. The primary goal of this project is to develop a novel framework for determining the most realistic and economical I/D dollar amounts for high-impact highway improvement projects. To achieve its goal, this project proposes an integration analysis including project schedule and the lower and upper bounds of the I/D contract. The lower bound is the contractor’s additional cost of acceleration, and the upper is the total savings to road users and to the agency. The study data were gathered using Construction Analysis for Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies (CA4PRS) software. These data were then grouped by four different types of pavements, namely Joint Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP), Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP), Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA), and Milling and Asphalt Concrete Overlay (MACO). With these data, a series of regression analyses were carried out to develop predictive models for the validation of time-cost tradeoff to determine I/D lower bound. Road user cost and agency cost savings were quantified using CA4PRS to develop lookup tables to determine I/D upper bound. Adjustment of contractors’ additional cost of acceleration with Level of Service (LOS) and total savings adjustment using Net Present Value (NPV) were incorporated in the research study to calculate point based estimates of I/D for lower and upper bound, respectively. Lastly, case studies on real world projects were conducted to evaluate robustness of the model. The research results reveal that the predictive models give appropriate results for the case studies in determining the I/D dollar amount for the lower and upper bound. This study will provide the research community with the first view and systematic estimation method that STAs can use to determine the most economical and realistic I/D dollar amount for a given project–an optimal value that allows the agency to stay within budget while effectively motivating contractors to complete projects ahead of schedule. It will also significantly reduce the agency’s expenses in the time and effort required for determining I/D dollar amounts.

This dissertation consists of three essays about heterogeneous agents in the dynamic economy and how to deal with the asymmetric information arose by heterogeneity. Firstly, I consider the optimal taxation issue in a dynamic endogenous growth model with considering human capital accumulation, and agents ability is heterogeneous and private information. Moreover, the agents with higher ability have positive external effects on others. By using the two-sector endogenous model, I show that it is optimal to impose different income and capital income taxes on people with different abilities. Specifically, positive marginal income tax is adopted for people with lower ability while no tax is imposed for people with higher ability; marginal capital income tax is zero whatever the agent’s is low or high. As for people using the capital and labor for human capital accumulation, the government should subsidize them whatever their ability is. Secondly, I study the optimal monetary and fiscal policy with heterogeneous agents based on the search-theoretical environment where money is essential and consider the private information. I first solve the households’ problem in the centralized and decentralized market, and find out the optimal conditions. Then, in this section, I describe the problem that social planner faces by involving uncertainty and agents whose types are continuous. By comparing the optimal conditions in this generous setting, I show that the Friedman rule is no longer optimal when jointed with nonlinear taxation of income. Moreover, the capital income taxation is not zero. Moreover, I constructs a general theoretical model to consider two kinds of financial frictions in the economy with financial intermediaries. By quantitative analysis the model with three separate shocks which are a negative collateral shock, a negative productivity shock and a positive shock to bankers’ divert rate, I find that a negative collateral shock which tightens firms’ financing constraints on investment can generate an equity price boom which is different from what is observed in recessions. Therefore, the collateral shock is not the main reason for the business cycle, while the negative productivity shock and bankers’ moral hazard problem are more important aspects to explain current economy.

This experiment was performed to assess the interactive effect of incentive strength and task difficulty using measures of behavioral intensity. Subjects faced an easy or difficult task in order to avoid having to listen to aversive radio static. Half of the subjects were to hear a loud noise and half were to hear a soft noise. Prior to task commencement, five measures of behavioral intensity were taken—two timing measures, two counting measures, and one measure involving the amount of error in filling in scantron bubbles. Results showed that one timing measure and three mood adjectives followed the predicted pattern, but not in a statistically significant fashion. The patterns indicated the energization remained low and uniform when subjects heard soft noise, but increased as a function of task difficulty when subjects were exposed to a loud noise. Results are discussed in terms of Brehn’s energization theory of motivation. / Department of Psychological Science

My dissertation is composed of three sections. The first section examines the effect of monetary incentives on student performance in public education in Texas. I address how to deal with non-random samples caused by self-selection bias by using propensity score matching method. For the second part, using household level panel data, it addresses the substantial heterogeneity across demographic groups. In addition, for the last section, I also investigate firm’s optimal innovation strategy. It addresses the relationship among firm growth, firm size and firm behavior in the U.S. manufacturing industry. The first section investigates the causal relationship between a teacher incentive program (District Awards for Teacher Excellence (D.A.T.E.) Program) and student academic achievement in Texas by using school-grade level panel data. I find that D.A.T.E. schools obtain significantly higher student achievement gains in reading and math than non-D.A.T.E. schools after the implementation of the program. In addition, D.A.T.E. schools implementing selected school plan obtain greater student achievement gains than those implementing district wide plan. However, the causal effects are found mainly among middle school. Importantly, these findings imply that the teacher incentive program could be an effective policy tool in Texas for developing student performance, but should be cautiously implemented due to the difference in effects according to the U.S. school level. The second section shows that while financial benefit and moral hazard appears to be the main cause of bankruptcy for less educated individuals, well-educated individuals file due to negative income shocks. This is consistent with some evidence suggesting that educated individuals face greater stigma and/or worse information regarding bankruptcy than less-educated individuals. Importantly, these results imply that optimal bankruptcy policy should likely vary across different demographic groups. In the third section, I find that firm size is negatively related to firm growth and positively correlated with firm survivability in the manufacturing industry. R&D investment has a significantly positive effect on firm growth and survivability in the same industry. In the services industry, advertising investment causes a reverse effect on firm growth. This suggests that innovative activities should vary depending on the characteristics of each industry.

The use of financial incentives mechanisms (FIMs) in Australian government large nonresidential building projects is seen as a way to improve project motivation and outcomes and reinforce long-term commitment between participants. Yet very little empirical research has been conducted into how FIMs should be applied in the context of construction projects and what determines their impact on motivation. The primary aim of this research was to identify the motivation drivers impacting on the achievement of FIM goals. This allowed for the formulation of recommendations to improve Australian government building procurement strategies, creating the potential for better project outcomes. The research involved four major case studies of large construction projects. Analysis of motivation drivers on each project was based on interviews with senior project participants, secondary documentation and site visits. Once the motivation drivers were identified, they were ranked by the weighted number of motivation indicators impacted, to give an indication of their relative importance. The results provide Australian government clients with key areas for policy direction. The findings indicate that the following motivation drivers (in order of impact) were more important than FIM design in achieving FIM goals: equitable contract risk allocation and management scope for future project opportunities with the client harmonious project relationships early contractor involvement in design stages value-driven tender selection processes. A consequence of ignoring these key procurement initiatives can be a less than ideal FIM goal performance, despite the nature of FIM design, including the strength of the reward on offer. FIMs have the potential to be a valuable addition to any project procurement strategy. Yet, the main message of this thesis is: If clients rely solely on financial incentives as the driver of motivation it will likely result in failure.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, August 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-123). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M. S.)--Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Silva, Emilson; Committee Member: Kilic, Rehim; Committee Member: Li, Haizheng.