Edward Lazear analyzed data provided by the Safelite Group, the nation’s largest
installer of auto glass, after the company changed the way it paid its glass installers
beginning in the mid-1990s. Instead of paying workers hourly wages, Safelite began to
pay workers on the basis of how many windows they installed. Which of the following
describes what Lazear concluded from his analysis of Safelite’s data?
A) Although workers installed more windows under the new system, Lazear found that
there was also an increase in the number of workmanship-related defects. Lazear
attributed this to workers taking short-cuts in order to earn higher wages. As a result,
productivity did not improve and Safelite went back to paying hourly wages.
B) Lazear found that worker productivity increased with the new system; about half of
the increase in productivity was due to workers who continued with the company and
half was due to new workers being more productive than those who left the company.
C) Although worker productivity improved, the increase in hourly wages resulted in a
significant decline in Safelite’s profits.
D) Because of a principal-agent problem, worker productivity was not affected by the
new compensation system. However, Lazear attributed this to management problems
that had nothing to do with Safelite’s compensation system.
An industry’s long-run supply curve shows
A) the relationship in the long run between market price and quantity supplied.
B) how the government determines the price of the product.
C) how average productivity is changing.
D) greater than normal profit.