Behavioral economics documents the importance of status and self-image concerns in the workplace, but is largely silent about how to instrumentalize them to induce effort. Awards - widespread in the corporate sector and elsewhere - are motivators that derive their value from such social concerns. Panel data from the call center of a large international bank allow us to estimate the impact of receiving an award on effort. The performance of winners proves to be significantly higher than that of comparable non-recipients after the award has been presented. This increase in work effort is sizeable, robust, and not driven by reverse causation.
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 2657.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
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Susanne Neckermann & Bruno S. Frey, 2008.
"Awards as Incentives,"
CREMA Working Paper Series
2008-31, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Susanne Neckermann & Bruno S. Frey, 2008.
"Awards as Incentives,"
IEW - Working Papers
iewwp334, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - IEW.
[Downloadable!]
Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2008.
"Status Incentives,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 206-11, May.
[Downloadable!]
Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2008.
"Superstar CEOs,"
NBER Working Papers
14140, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)