Morale and Debt Dynamics
研究发现债务会破坏关系激励、损害员工士气，通过动态模型和实证数据揭示企业优先偿债导致工资和努力缓慢提升，且影响持久。
This paper shows that debt undermines relational incentives and harms worker morale. We build a dynamic model of a manager who uses limited financial resources to simultaneously repay a creditor and motivate a worker. If the manager can divert or misuse revenue, then debt makes the manager less willing to follow through on promised rewards, leading to low worker effort. In profit-maximizing equilibria, the firm prioritizes repaying its debts, leading to gradual increases in effort and wages. These dynamics can persist even after debts have been fully repaid. Consistent with this analysis, we document that a firm’s financial leverage is negatively related to measures of employee morale, wages, and productivity. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.