We attempt to formulate and explain two types of self-fulfilling prophecy, called the Pygmalion effect (if a supervisor thinks her subordinates will succeed, they are more likely to succeed) and the Galatea effect (if a person thinks he will succeed, he is more likely to succeed). To this purpose, we extend a simple agency model with moral hazard and limited liability by introducing a model of reference dependent preferences (RDP) by Kõszegi and Rabin (2004). We show that the agent with high expectations about his performance can be induced to choose high effort with low-powered incentives. We then show that the principal’s expectation has an important role as an equilibrium selection device.
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 1444.
Find related papers by JEL classification: B49 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Other D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executive Compensation M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
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