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.
Economists are reluctant to state that price controls are desirable or undesirable because
A) it is impossible to evaluate the impact on quantity demanded and quantity supplied
as a result of price controls.
B) whether the gains from the winners exceed the losses from the losers is not strictly
an economic question.
C) sometimes price controls result in increases in economic efficiency and sometimes
they result in decreases in economic efficiency.
D) economists are reluctant to conduct positive analysis of price controls.