Innovating Yourself Out of a Job*
研究了生产工人持续改进创新可能导致自身未来失业的问题，通过两期模型分析最优多任务合同，发现雇主会减少第一期就业以降低激励成本，并预测类似现象在林肯电气等企业普遍存在。
Continuous improvement, where production workers suggest incremental process improvements, has become standard practice in modern manufacturing. I consider a simple two‐period model where workers produce output and innovate and innovation leads to future job losses. I derive the optimal multitasking contract and show that the principal distorts optimal first period employment downwards to increase the probability of continued employment and reduce first period incentive costs. At high levels of moral hazard, first period employment does not respond to shifts in demand and other parameters. I observe similar distortions at Lincoln Electric and predict that they should be observed more broadly.