We use experiments to compare two institutions for allocating the proceeds of team production. Under revenue-sharing, each team member receives an equal share of team output; under leader-determined shares, a team leader has the power to implement her own allocation. Both arrangements are vulnerable to opportunistic incentives: under revenuesharing team members have an incentive to free-ride, while under leader-determined shares leaders have an incentive to seize team output. We find that most leaders forego the temptation to appropriate team output and manage to curtail free-riding. As a result, compared to revenue-sharing, the presence of a team leader results in a significant improvement in team performance.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research in its series Discussion Paper with number
109.
Eline van der Heijden & Jan Potters & Martin Sefton, 2006.
"Hierarchy and Opportunism in Teams,"
Discussion Papers
2006-15, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
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