Suppose you won't or can't spend all vacation hours. You can sell them to the employer to get cash or exchange them for a new bicycle. The point is the former needs to pay about 50% tax and the latter is calculated on your gross salary. Specifically, if your gross salary is X per hour and get aX net where a < 0.5. Suppose you have Y vacation hours left. Then you can a bicycle with a budget of YX. If you can't get this benifit, you can only buy a bicycle with a budget of aYX < YX. If you don't need a bicycle, you can get bYX < aYX < YX cash where a < b = 0.5. Obviously, this is a kind of welfare, so you only have one opportunity for every three years. If you take that early first year, you still have the second opportunity in the 4th year of your Ph.D. |