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Do Workers Work More if Wages Are High? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

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Author Info
Lorenz Götte
Ernst Fehr

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Abstract

The canonical model of life-cycle labor supply predicts a positive response of labor supplied to transitory wage changes. We tested this prediction by conducting a randomized field experiment with bicycle messengers. In contrast to previous studies we can observe in which way working hours as well as effort respond to a wage increase and we have full control regarding the workers’ anticipation of the wage increase. The evidence indicates that workers increase monthly working time and decrease their daily effort but since the working time effect dominates the effort effect overall labor supply increases. The decrease in daily effort contradicts the canonical model of intertemporal labor supply with time separable preferences, since the wage in our experiment directly rewarded effort. We show that a simple model of loss averse, reference dependent, preferences can account for both the increase in working time and the decrease in daily effort. Moreover, we elicit independent individual measures of loss aversion and show that workers who are more prone to loss aversion are more likely to reduce effort in response to higher wages. Our model and our results also reconcile the seemingly contradictory evidence reported in previous studies (Camerer et al. 1997, Oettinger 1999) of high frequency labor supply.

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Paper provided by The Field Experiments Website in its series Natural Field Experiments with number 0047.

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Date of creation: 2002
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Handle: RePEc:feb:natura:0047

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Altonji, Joseph G, 1986. "Intertemporal Substitution in Labor Supply: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages S176-S215, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Camerer, Colin & Babcock, Linda & Loewenstein, George & Thaler, Richard, 1996. "Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers: One Day At A time," Working Papers 960, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Matthew Rabin., 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Economics Working Papers E00-279, University of California at Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  4. Ridder, Geert & Tunali, Insan, 1999. "Stratified partial likelihood estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 193-232, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Pencavel, John, 1987. "Labor supply of men: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-102 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2005. "Affect as a Source of Motivation in the Workplace: A New Model of Labor Supply, and New Field Evidence on Income Targeting and the Goal Gradient," IZA Discussion Papers 1890, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Henry S. Farber, 2005. "Is Tomorrow Another Day? The Labor Supply of New York City Cabdrivers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 46-82, February.
  8. Gerald S. Oettinger, 1999. "An Empirical Analysis of the Daily Labor Supply of Stadium Vendors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 360-392, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. David Card, 1991. "Intertemporal Labor Supply: An Assessment," NBER Working Papers 3602, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Robin Cubitt & Chris Starmer & Robert Sugden, 1998. "On the Validity of the Random Lottery Incentive System," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 115-131, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series 1034, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  13. Mankiw, N Gregory & Rotemberg, Julio J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1985. "Intertemporal Substitution in Macroeconomics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 225-51, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Ernst Fehr & David Huffman & Lorenz Goette, 2004. "Loss Aversion And Labor Supply," Method and Hist of Econ Thought 0409003, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Kahn, Shulamit & Lang, Kevin, 1991. "The Effect of Hours Constraints on Labor Supply Estimates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(4), pages 605-11, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Browning, Martin & Deaton, Angus & Irish, Margaret, 1985. "A Profitable Approach to Labor Supply and Commodity Demands over the Life-Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 503-43, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Read, Daniel & Loewenstein, George & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Choice Bracketing," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 171-97, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Athey, Susan & Schmutzler, Armin, 2001. "Investment and Market Dominance," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 1-26, Spring.
  19. Simon Gaechter & Eric Johnson & Andreas Herrmann, 2007. "Individual-Level Loss Aversion In Riskless And Risky Choices," Discussion Papers 2007-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham. [Downloadable!]
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  20. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1281-1292, September.
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ernst Fehr & David Huffman & Lorenz Goette, 2004. "Loss Aversion And Labor Supply," Method and Hist of Econ Thought 0409003, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Messer, Dolores & Wolter, Stefan, 2009. "Money Matters: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Field Experiment with Vouchers for Adult Training," IZA Discussion Papers 4017, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Dean S. Karlan, 2005. "Using Experimental Economics to Measure Social Capital and Predict Financial Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1688-1699, December. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Randolph Sloof & C. Mirjam van Praag, 2008. "The Effect of Noise in a Performance Measure on Work Motivation," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-074/1, Tinbergen Institute. [Downloadable!]
  5. Oded Netzer & Olivier Toubia & Eric Bradlow & Ely Dahan & Theodoros Evgeniou & Fred Feinberg & Eleanor Feit & Sam Hui & Joseph Johnson & John Liechty & James Orlin & Vithala Rao, 2008. "Beyond conjoint analysis: Advances in preference measurement," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 337-354, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Charles Bellemare & Bruce Shearer, 2007. "Gift Exchange within a Firm: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Cahiers de recherche 0708, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Vincent Crawford & Juanjuan Meng, 2008. "New York City Cabdrivers' Labor Supply Revisited: Reference-Dependence Preferences with Rational-Expectations Targets for Hours and Income," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series 2008-03, Department of Economics, UC San Diego. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2005. "Affect as a Source of Motivation in the Workplace: A New Model of Labor Supply, and New Field Evidence on Income Targeting and the Goal Gradient," IZA Discussion Papers 1890, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  9. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2008. "Field Experiments in Economics: The Past, The Present, and The Future," NBER Working Papers 14356, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2006. "Incentives and the Allocation of Effort Over Time: The Joint Role of Affective and Cognitive Decision Making," IZA Discussion Papers 2400, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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