Millions of people are out of work.Thousands of businesses are failing.The economy is in the tank."OK", you say, "Thanks for that cheery news bulletin. Now tell me something I didn't know. Like, how can I earn money from home, even though the economy is bad?"Did you know there is a business that has done well in good times and bad during at least the last 50 years? Did you know that it will continue to do well for the next 50 years too?What is it?Selling information by direct marketing. Surprised? Don't be.I believe information products marketing is the perfect home based business for good economic times and bad. Dozens of internet marketing experts, like Terry Dean, Marlon Sanders, and Fred Gleeck, agree.People just like you continue to buy information that helps them solve a problem, meet a need, or satisfy a deep desire. We are in the information age, and the need for useful and valuable information is not going to go away anytime soon.Everyone knows more about at least one subject than almost everybody else. That makes the more knowledgeable person an "expert". Are you an expert? I bet you are and don't even realize it. If you know a lot about something, it is easy to assume everyone else knows that too. But, they often don't know much, and are very interested in knowing more.
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
On the negative correlation between effort and pay
It would seem natural that in a system where pay is linked to performance, better performers are rewarded more handsomely. Yet, there are plenty of examples where this does not work. If it is difficult to find a metric of performance, then the selected metric may give wrong incentives. The classic example is programmers paid by the number of code lines written, which leads to bloated and confusing code. Another one is with many civil servant jobs where the output is not related to a marketed good. The issue can be so bad that a negative correlation between performance and pay emergence.
Ola Kvaløy and Trond Olsen show that this could happen in another way that is not related to monetary and non-monetary rewards, yet has an impact on intrinsic motivation: weak enforcement probability. Suppose the latter is variable. Then high monetary rewards may be associated with a low probability that the scheme will actually be used. Workers may then just slack off. The above hypothesis is not completely insane, as one can imagine situations where there is moral hazard on the side of the worker, and the work contract tries provide the worker both with incentives and with some insurance. It works also without worker risk aversion if there is limited liability.
Ola Kvaløy and Trond Olsen show that this could happen in another way that is not related to monetary and non-monetary rewards, yet has an impact on intrinsic motivation: weak enforcement probability. Suppose the latter is variable. Then high monetary rewards may be associated with a low probability that the scheme will actually be used. Workers may then just slack off. The above hypothesis is not completely insane, as one can imagine situations where there is moral hazard on the side of the worker, and the work contract tries provide the worker both with incentives and with some insurance. It works also without worker risk aversion if there is limited liability.
Spouses and unemployment duration
When unemployed, some people search more intensely for a new job than others. That will of course depend on their personal circumstances. The urgency of getting some income is obviously more pressing when there is little alternative income, and one such alternative is the spouse.
Stefania Marcassa studies French couples where one spouse works and the other is unemployed. It turns out unemployed men search longer for a job if their spouse earns less, while it is reversed for unemployed women. That turns out to be consistent, in a standard labor search model, with a breadwinner stigma for men. French men do not seems to be able to bear the thought of having a successful wife while being unemployed, while women see no hurry to work if their husband is doing well. Clearly, the sexist ones here are the men.
Stefania Marcassa studies French couples where one spouse works and the other is unemployed. It turns out unemployed men search longer for a job if their spouse earns less, while it is reversed for unemployed women. That turns out to be consistent, in a standard labor search model, with a breadwinner stigma for men. French men do not seems to be able to bear the thought of having a successful wife while being unemployed, while women see no hurry to work if their husband is doing well. Clearly, the sexist ones here are the men.
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