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Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: Substitutes or Complements?

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  • S. Bowles
  • S. Polania-Reyes.

Abstract

Part 2 In the second part of the paper concrete forms and examples of the effects of incentives on the social preferences are shown and experiments are described where these effects occur. The authors claim that the negative consequences of the incentives are connected less to the incentives themselves as, rather, with their perceptions among the agents. That is why for a reasonable use of incentives one has to take account of possible effects of such perceptions.

Suggested Citation

  • S. Bowles & S. Polania-Reyes., 2013. "Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: Substitutes or Complements?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 5.
    • Handle: RePEc:nos:voprec:2013-05-4
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    Keywords

    preferences; incentives; social goods; experiments.;

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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