IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v117y2012i3p687-690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fair wages when employers face the risk of losing money

Author

Listed:
  • Gose, Karina
  • Sadrieh, Abdolkarim

Abstract

When employers can incur losses from the labor relationship in a gift exchange game, they offer lower wages on average than in a no-loss relationship. Taking employers’ risk of losing money into account, employees exert more effort per wage unit.

Suggested Citation

  • Gose, Karina & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2012. "Fair wages when employers face the risk of losing money," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 687-690.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:687-690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2011.12.073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176511005969
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2011.12.073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness, 2004. "Attribution and Reciprocity in an Experimental Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 665-688, July.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    4. Martin Brown & Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr, 2004. "Relational Contracts and the Nature of Market Interactions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(3), pages 747-780, May.
    5. Simon Gächter & Armin Falk, 2002. "Reputation and Reciprocity: Consequences for the Labour Relation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(1), pages 1-26, March.
    6. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    7. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    8. Sandra Maximiano & Randolph Sloof & Joep Sonnemans, 2007. "Gift Exchange in a Multi-Worker Firm," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 1025-1050, July.
    9. Bruggen, Alexander & Strobel, Martin, 2007. "Real effort versus chosen effort in experiments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 232-236, August.
    10. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    11. Fehr, Ernst & Kirchler, Erich & Weichbold, Andreas & Gächter, Simon, 1998. "When Social Norms Overpower Competition: Gift Exchange in Experimental Labor Markets," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 324-351, April.
    12. Fahr, Rene & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2000. "Fairness as a constraint on trust in reciprocity: earned property rights in a reciprocal exchange experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 275-282, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gose, Karina & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2014. "Strike, coordination, and dismissal in uniform wage settings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 145-158.
    2. Işgın, Ebru & Sopher, Barry, 2015. "Information transparency, fairness and labor market efficiency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-39.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    2. Gary Charness & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Jose Maria Perez, 2016. "Social comparisons in wage delegation: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 433-459, June.
    3. Kocher, Martin G. & Luhan, Wolfgang J. & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Testing a forgotten aspect of Akerlof’s gift exchange hypothesis: Relational contracts with individual and uniform wages," Discussion Papers in Economics 12816, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Gagnon, Nickolas & Noussair, C., 2016. "Does Reciprocity Persist Over Time?," Research Memorandum 033, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    5. Chen, Zeyang & Lin, Wanchuan & Meng, Juanjuan, 2022. "Does gift competition hurt? An experimental study of multilateral gift exchange," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 260-275.
    6. Becker, Johannes & Hopp, Daniel & Süß, Karolin, 2020. "How altruistic is indirect reciprocity? - Evidence from gift-exchange games in the lab," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224592, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Fortuna Casoria & Arno Riedl, 2013. "Experimental Labor Markets And Policy Considerations: Incomplete Contracts And Macroeconomic Aspects," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 398-420, July.
    8. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Martin Sefton, 2012. "The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1346-1367, December.
    9. Tetsuo Yamamori & Kazuyuki Iwata, 2019. "Endogenous Social Preferences in Bargaining and Contract Enforcement," Working Papers e134, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    10. Dariel, A. & Riedl, A.M., 2013. "Reciprocal preferences and the unraveling of gift-exchange," Research Memorandum 034, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    11. Mark F. Owens, 2010. "Other-Regarding Preferences with Peer Workers in Labor Markets: An Experimental Investigation," Working Papers 201008, Middle Tennessee State University, Department of Economics and Finance.
    12. Davies, Elwyn & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2021. "When no bad deed goes punished: Relational contracting in Ghana and the UK," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 714-737.
    13. Tetsuo Yamamori & Kazuyuki Iwata, 2023. "Wage claim detracts reciprocity in labor relations: experimental study of gift exchange games," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 18(3), pages 573-597, July.
    14. Blumkin, Tomer & Pinhas, Haim & Zultan, Ro’i, 2020. "Wage Subsidies and Fair Wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    15. Gose, Karina & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim, 2014. "Strike, coordination, and dismissal in uniform wage settings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 145-158.
    16. Israel Waichman & Ch’ng Kean Siang & Till Requate & Aric P. Shafran & Eva Camacho-Cuena & Yoshio Iida & Shosh Shahrabani, 2015. "Reciprocity in Labor Market Relationships: Evidence from an Experiment across High-Income OECD Countries," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-22, October.
    17. Krügel, Jan Philipp & Traub, Stefan, 2018. "Reciprocity and resistance to change: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 95-114.
    18. Vera Popva, 2010. "What renders financial advisors less treacherous? - On commissions and reciprocity -," Jena Economics Research Papers 2010-036, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. Stanca, Luca, 2010. "How to be kind? Outcomes versus intentions as determinants of fairness," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 19-21, January.
    20. Annarita COLASANTE & Alberto RUSSO, 2014. "Reciprocity in the labour market: experimental evidence," Working Papers 404, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Efficiency wage; Social comparison; Inequity aversion; Loss aversion; Strategic risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:687-690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.