Team incentives in public organisations; an experimental study
Abstract
Using a simple production game, we investigate whether public firms perform better when they increase the power of their workersââ¬â¢ incentive schemes. In a laboratory experiment, subjects choose between a ‘public firm’ and a ‘private firm’ with team and individual incentives, respectively. When exposed to individual incentives, workers in the public firm increase effort in one parametrisation, but show a decrease in another. One reason for the latter observation is that reciprocators self-select in the public firm, rendering cooperation profitable.Download Info
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Paper provided by CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis in its series CPB Discussion Paper with number 60.Length:
Date of creation: Mar 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cpb:discus:60
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Keywords:Find related papers by JEL classification:
- M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics
- C7 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory
- C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
- L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2006-03-25 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBE-2006-03-25 (Cognitive & Behavioural Economics)
- NEP-EXP-2006-03-25 (Experimental Economics)
- NEP-LAB-2006-03-25 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-PBE-2006-03-25 (Public Economics)
- NEP-SOC-2006-03-25 (Social Norms & Social Capital)
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