Stephanie R. Thomas is a Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Cornell University. She teaches courses in microeconomics, labor economics and personnel economics. From August 2013 through June 2016, Dr. Thomas also served as the Program Director of the ILR School’s Institute for Compensation Studies, an interdisciplinary initiative that analyzes, teaches and communicates about monetary and non-monetary rewards from work. Dr. Thomas earned her Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research.
Course Overview
Cornell University ILR School professors Kevin Hallock, Linda Barrington, and Stephanie Thomas are the thought leaders behind Cornell's prestigious Institute for Compensation Studies. This team of authors and educators offers a learning experience that combines real-world case studies with an evidence-based, social science approach to the field of compensation. This course equips HR professionals with the tools and insights they need to apply a total-rewards view to compensation that aligns with their organization's strategic goals and operational realities. This includes the Compensation Calculator, created by the Dean of the ILR School, Kevin Hallock, offering a method of job comparison that incorporates the total rewards view.
Key Course Takeaways
- How to recognize and apply elements of the Total Rewards Framework
- Ways to identify the risks/costs of compensation in order to aid you in compensation decision making
- The point method and its uses so that you can be conversant in the ways organizations determine salary range
- Effective methods of communicating and implementing a plan to support your organization
- Ways to align the compensation strategy to the talent strategy

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Course Authors
Kevin F. Hallock is Professor of Strategy and Business Economics at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and the Joseph R. Rich ’80 Professor of Economics and Human Resource Studies and Founding Director of the Institute for Compensation Studies in the ILR School at Cornell University. Previous Cornell positions include the Chair of the University Financial Policy Committee, the Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, the Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the Donald C. Opatrny ’74 Chair of the University-Wide Department of Economics.
He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.
Kevin’s work has covered a variety of topics including executive compensation, compensation design, discrimination, compensation of persons with disabilities, strikes, the gender gap, job loss, the link between labor and financial markets, the valuation of employee stock options, compensation of leaders of for-profits, nonprofits and labor unions, retirement, and quantile regression. His current research is focused on labor markets, executive compensation, and the plan design and mix of employee compensation.
His work has been published in a variety of outlets including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Journal of Public Economics, the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Funding for his research has come from various sources, including the American Compensation Association, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Education and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is the recipient of the Albert Reese Award for the Best Dissertation in Labor Economics from the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University and the John Dunlop Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association.
He earned a B.A. in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1991, a M.A. in Economics from Princeton University in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 1995.
Linda Barrington is the Associate Dean for External Relations in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business as well as the executive director of Cornell’s Institute for Compensation Studies. Dr. Barrington’s published research addresses employee compensation, gender issues in the workplace, employees with disabilities, and workforce demographics.
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