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Other-Regarding Preferences and Performance Pay - An Experiment on Incentives and Sorting

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Author Info

  • Tor Eriksson

    () (Department of economics - University of Aarhus)

  • Marie-Claire Villeval

    (GATE - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS : UMR5824 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines)

Abstract

Variable pay not only creates a link between pay and performance but may also help firms in attracting the more productive employees (Lazear 1986, 2000). However, due to lack of natural data, empirical analyses of the relative importance of the selection and incentive effects of pay schemes are so far thin on the ground. In addition, these effects may be influenced by the nature of the relationship between the firm and its employees. This paper reports results of a laboratory experiment that analyzes the influence of other-regarding preferences on sorting and incentives. Experimental evidence shows that (i) the opportunity to switch to piece-rate increases the average level of output and its variance; (ii) there is a concentration of high skill workers in performance pay firms; (iii) however, in repeated interactions, efficiency wages coupled with reciprocity and inequality aversion reduce the attraction of performance related pay. Other-regarding preferences influence both the provision of incentives and their sorting effect.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by HAL in its series Post-Print with number halshs-00180115.

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Date of creation: Jul 2004
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Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00180115

Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00180115/en/
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Related research

Keywords: experiment; incentives; performance pay; selection;

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References

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  1. Daniel Parent, 1997. "Methods of Pay and Earnings: A Longitudinal Analysis," CIRANO Working Papers 97s-14, CIRANO.
  2. Charness, Gary & Frechette, Guillaume R & Kagel, John H, 2002. "How Robust is Laboratory Gift Exchange?," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt8qq4k3ph, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
  3. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1346-1361, December.
  4. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter & Georg Kirchsteiger, 1997. "Reciprocity as a Contract Enforcement Device: Experimental Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 833-860, July.
  5. Fehr, Ernst & Kirchsteiger, George & Riedl, Arno, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(2), pages 437-59, May.
  6. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2000. "Fairness, incentives, and contractual choices," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(4-6), pages 1057-1068, May.
  7. Falk, Armin & Gachter, Simon & Kovacs, Judit, 1999. "Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives in a repeated game with incomplete contracts," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 251-284, June.
  8. Fehr, Ernst & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Riedl, Arno, 1996. "Involuntary unemployment and non-compensating wage differentials in an experimental labour market," Open Access publications from Maastricht University urn:nbn:nl:ui:27-16459, Maastricht University.
  9. Fehr, Ernst & Gächter, Simon, 2001. "Do Incentive Contracts Crowd Out Voluntary Cooperation?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3017, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  10. Richard B. Freeman & Morris M. Kleiner, 1998. "The Last American Shoe Manufacturers: Changing the Method of Pay to Survive Foreign Competition," NBER Working Papers 6750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Booth, Alison L & Frank, Jeff, 1999. "Earnings, Productivity, and Performance-Related Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 447-63, July.
  12. Simon Gächter & Ernst Fehr, . "Fairness in the Labour Market – A Survey of Experimental Results," IEW - Working Papers 114, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Tor Eriksson & Sabrina Teyssier & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2006. "Effort Self-Selection and the Efficiency of Tournaments," Post-Print halshs-00142876, HAL.
  2. Tor Eriksson & Sabrina Teyssier & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2006. "Self-Selection and the Efficiency of Tournaments," Post-Print halshs-00175041, HAL.
  3. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2008. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 485-501, July.
  4. Pouliakas, Konstantinos, 2008. "Pay enough, don’t pay too much or don’t pay at all? An empirical study of the non-monotonic impact of incentives on job satisfaction," MPRA Paper 10031, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Pouliakas, Konstantinos, 2010. "Pay Enough, Don't Pay Too Much or Don't Pay at All? The Impact of Bonus Intensity on Job Satisfaction," IZA Discussion Papers 4713, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  6. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2009. "Confronting Objections to Performance Pay: A Study of the Impact of Individual and Gain-sharing Incentives on the Job Satisfaction of British Employees," MPRA Paper 14244, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. Sabrina Teyssier, 2008. "Les Modes de Rémunération comme Mécanismes Sélectifs de la Main d’oeuvre : Fondements Théoriques et Estimations Empiriques," Working Papers 0818, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 2, Ecole Normale Supérieure.
  8. Sabrina Teyssier, 2008. "Les Modes de Rémunération comme MécanismesSélectifs de la Main d'oeuvre : Fondements Théoriques et Estimations Empiriques," Post-Print halshs-00303703, HAL.

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