Essays on Job Quality: Discrimination, Performance Pay, and Corporate Social Responsibility

This dissertation examines three distinct aspects of job quality using linked employer-employee data from the Netherlands and Germany. In Chapter 1, we investigate employment termination using Dutch administrative data and exogenous variation from statutory age-based minimum wage increases. We document systematic demographic differences in dismissal responses that vary with tenure and labor market conditions at hire, providing evidence on how firms treat workers of different demographic groups differently when retention costs rise mechanically. Chapter 2 examines performance pay in German establishments, testing whether workers with higher ability are more likely to have performance pay in their contracts. Using a proxy for ability estimated from register data, I find evidence of ability-based sorting on the extensive margin: higher-ability workers are more likely to work in firms and positions offering performance pay and have higher performance-based earnings, but I do not find strong evidence that they face different contractual performance incentives. Chapter 3 explores corporate social responsibility (CSR), examining how firm-level CSR practices relate to employee perceptions and affective outcomes. Using a multilevel approach with matched employer-employee data, we find that employees' CSR perceptions strongly predict their work engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment roughly two years later, yet we find only limited evidence that firm-level CSR practices translate into these perceptions. Each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently. Together they provide complementary perspectives on different dimensions of job quality.