IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v117y2012i1p326-329.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The co-evolution of reciprocity-based wage offers and effort choices

Author

Listed:
  • Schliffke, Philipp

Abstract

I study the evolution of reciprocity in a gift-exchange game. In equilibrium, wage offers induce maximal effort but there is strong inequity in favor of the workers. The result suggests that norm-based efficiency wages may be unstable over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Schliffke, Philipp, 2012. "The co-evolution of reciprocity-based wage offers and effort choices," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 326-329.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:1:p:326-329
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.05.033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176512003011
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2012.05.033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter & Georg Kirchsteiger, 1997. "Reciprocity as a Contract Enforcement Device: Experimental Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 833-860, July.
    3. Christian Korth, 2009. "Reciprocity—An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, in: Fairness in Bargaining and Markets, chapter 0, pages 35-55, Springer.
    4. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M Schmidt, 2007. "Fairness and Contract Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 121-154, January.
    6. Ross Cressman, 2003. "Evolutionary Dynamics and Extensive Form Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033054, December.
    7. Werner Güth & Hartmut Kliemt, 1994. "Competition Or Co-Operation: On The Evolutionary Economics Of Trust, Exploitation And Moral Attitudes," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 155-187, June.
    8. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    9. Geanakoplos, John & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1989. "Psychological games and sequential rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 60-79, March.
    10. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    11. Herold, Florian & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2009. "Evolutionary stability of discrimination under observability," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 542-551, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vera Popva, 2010. "What renders financial advisors less treacherous? - On commissions and reciprocity -," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-036, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Bierbrauer, Felix & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "Mechanism design and intentions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 557-603.
    3. Boosey, Luke & Goerg, Sebastian, 2020. "The timing of discretionary bonuses – effort, signals, and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 254-280.
    4. Sliwka, Dirk, 2003. "On the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," IZA Discussion Papers 844, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Florian Englmaier & Stephen Leider, 2012. "Contractual and Organizational Structure with Reciprocal Agents," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 146-183, May.
    6. Becker, Johannes & Hopp, Daniel & Süß, Karolin, 2020. "How altruistic is indirect reciprocity? - Evidence from gift-exchange games in the lab," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224592, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. D'Agostino, Elena & Lisciandra, Maurizio, 2012. "Enforceable vs. non-enforceable contracts: a theoretical appraisal with fair players," MPRA Paper 41261, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Simon Gaechter & Esther Kessler & Manfred Koenigstein, 2011. "The roles of incentives and voluntary cooperation for contractual compliance," Discussion Papers 2011-06, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    9. Dhami, Sanjit & Wei, Mengxing & al-Nowaihi, Ali, 2023. "Classical and belief-based gift exchange models: Theory and evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 171-196.
    10. Ben-Ner, Avner & Putterman, Louis & Kong, Fanmin & Magan, Dan, 2004. "Reciprocity in a two-part dictator game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 333-352, March.
    11. Grossmann, Volker, 2002. "Is it rational to internalize the personal norm that one should reciprocate?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 27-48, February.
    12. Bogliacino, Francesco & Rodríguez González, Nicolás, 2020. "Two-worker competition in gift-exchange: assessing intention-based reciprocity and inequity aversion," MPRA Paper 99055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    14. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    15. Kocher, Martin G. & Luhan, Wolfgang J. & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Testing a forgotten aspect of Akerlof’s gift exchange hypothesis: Relational contracts with individual and uniform wages," Discussion Papers in Economics 12816, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. Klaus M. Schmidt, 2011. "Social Preferences and Competition," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 207-231, August.
    17. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    18. Fortuna Casoria & Arno Riedl, 2013. "Experimental Labor Markets And Policy Considerations: Incomplete Contracts And Macroeconomic Aspects," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 398-420, July.
    19. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    20. Lin, Chung-Cheng & Yang, C.C., 2010. "Reciprocity and downward wage rigidity," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1155-1168, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reciprocity; Gift-exchange; Indirect evolution; Efficiency wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
    • D - Microeconomics
    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:1:p:326-329. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.