Reciprocity, self-interest and reputation: debt vs equity contracts

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine whether reputation element affects the decision relative performance of trust, bonus and incentive contracts using social laboratory experiments. Design/methodology/approach - The study conducts the following lab experiments bonus–incentive treatment without reputation, bonus–incentive treatment with reputation and trust–incentive treatment with reputation. Findings - The study finds that the reputation and fairness concerns, in contrast to self-interest, may have a decisive impact on the actual and optimal choices in the reciprocity-based contracts. The principal pays higher salaries in the bonus contract as compared to an incentive contract. Originality/value - The study contributes to the behavioral economic literature in the following dimensions. The existing literature on lab experiments considers a bonus contract as better than the debt contract; however, it does not consider the trust contract better than the debt contract.