Transparency, Career Concerns, and Incentives for Acquiring Expertise
Abstract
An agent, who cares about signaling his ability, chooses among different projects that generate observable outcomes. The agent's information about which project delivers a good outcome depends on both his ability and his effort. This paper examines how the agent's incentives for effort change depending on whether or not the agent's project choice is observed. If this choice is publicly observed, the agent's project choice is distorted towards particular types of projects. When the outcomes of these advantaged projects are particularly sensitive to the agent's information, such transparency boosts the agent's information-gathering incentives. However, when public observation of project choice leads the agent to choose information-insensitive projects, then such transparency dampens incentives. This provides a more nuanced view of the implications of action transparency in the literature on career concerns for experts.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by De Gruyter in its journal The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics.
Volume (Year): 12 (2012)
Issue (Month): 1 ()
Pages: 4
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.degruyter.com
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Web: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bejte
Related research
Keywords: transparency; career concerns; expertise; information acquisition; information-sensitive;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
- D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search, Learning, and Information
- M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
- M59 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Other
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Bénabou, Roland & Tirole, Jean, 2011.
"Laws and Norms,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
8663, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- Benabou, Roland & Tirole, Jean, 2012. "Laws and Norms," IZA Discussion Papers 6290, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Roland Benabou & Jean Tirole, 2011. "Laws and Norms," NBER Working Papers 17579, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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