What determines worker motivation?

I suggest three projects that combine quasi-experimental research designs and administrative data from Austria to study different influ-ences on worker motivation. In project 1, we will establish the link be-tween outside options and worker motivation both theoretically and empirically, using relational contracting models and exogenous varia-tion in outside options through age and experience cutoffs in the Austrian unemployment insurance system to test predictions from these models. In project 2, we will study the effect of an exogenous change in income taxes on worker absenteeism, showing that absen-teeism responses could have important implications for deadweight loss calculations of income taxation and deriving insights for firm de-cision making. Finally, in project 3, we will estimate the effects of mass layoffs on the motivation of workers who remain in the firm.