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Risking Other People’s Money: Experimental Evidence on Bonus Schemes, Competition, and Altruism

Author

Listed:
  • Andersson, Ola

    (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN))

  • Holm, Håkan J.

    (Lund University)

  • Tyran, Jean-Robert

    (University of Vienna)

  • Wengström, Erik

    (Lund University)

Abstract

We study risk taking on behalf of others in an experiment on a large random sample. The decision makers in our experiment are facing high-powered incentives to increase the risk on behalf of others through hedged compensation contracts or with tournament incentives. Compared to a baseline condition without such incentives, we find that the decision makers respond strongly to these incentives that result in an increased risk exposure of others. However, we find that the increase in risk taking is mitigated by altruistic preferences and pro-social personality traits.

Suggested Citation

  • Andersson, Ola & Holm, Håkan J. & Tyran, Jean-Robert & Wengström, Erik, 2013. "Risking Other People’s Money: Experimental Evidence on Bonus Schemes, Competition, and Altruism," Working Paper Series 989, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0989
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Dugar, Subhasish & Mitra, Arnab & Shahriar, Quazi, 2019. "Deception: The role of uncertain consequences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-18.
    3. Sandro Casal & Matteo Ploner & Alec N. Sproten, 2019. "Fostering The Best Execution Regime: An Experiment About Pecuniary Sanctions And Accountability In Fiduciary Money Management," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 600-616, January.
    4. Thomas Noe & Nir Vulkan, 2018. "Naked aggression: Personality and portfolio manager performance," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Pollmann, Monique M.H. & Potters, Jan & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2014. "Risk taking by agents: The role of ex-ante and ex-post accountability," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(3), pages 387-390.
    6. Giovanni Ponti & Ismael Rodríguez Lara & Daniela Di Cagno, 2014. "Doing it now or later with payoff externalities: Experimental evidence on social time preferences," Working Papers. Serie AD 2014-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    7. Losecaat Vermeer, Annabel B. & Boksem, Maarten A.S. & Sanfey, Alan G., 2020. "Third-party decision-making under risk as a function of prior gains and losses," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Haß, Lars Helge & Müller, Maximilian A. & Vergauwe, Skrålan, 2015. "Tournament incentives and corporate fraud," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 251-267.
    9. de Oliveira, Angela C.M. & Smith, Alexander & Spraggon, John, 2017. "Reward the lucky? An experimental investigation of the impact of agency and luck on bonuses," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 87-97.
    10. Christine L. Exley, 2015. "Excusing Selfishness in Charitable Giving: The Role of Risk," Discussion Papers 15-013, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    11. Kvaløy, Ola & Eriksen, Kristoffer & Luzuriaga , Miguel, 2014. "Risk-taking with Other People’s Money," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2014/21, University of Stavanger.
    12. Gregor Dorfleitner & Mai Nguyen, 2016. "Which proportion of SR investments is enough? A survey-based approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, April.
    13. Eleonore Batteux & Eamonn Ferguson & Richard J Tunney, 2019. "Do our risk preferences change when we make decisions for others? A meta-analysis of self-other differences in decisions involving risk," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, May.
    14. Ploner, Matteo & Saredi, Viola, 2020. "Exploration and delegation in risky choices," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Incentives; Competition; Hedging; Risk taking; Social preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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