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Social comparisons in wage delegation: Experimental evidence

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Listed author(s):
  • Charness, Gary
  • Cobo-Reyes, Ramon
  • Lacomba, Juan A
  • Lagos, Francisco
  • Perez, Jose M

Abstract

Abstract We make two main contributions in this article. We examine whether social comparisons affects workers’ performance when a firm can choose workers’ wages or let them choose their own. Firms can delegate the wage decision to neither, one or both workers in the firm. We vary the information workers receive, finding that social comparisons concerning both wages and decision rights affect workers’ performance. Our second contribution is methodological. We find that our treatment effects are present with both stated effort and a real-effort task, which suggests that both approaches may yield similar results in labor experiments.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara in its series University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series with number qt8j55h1xj.

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Date of creation: 13 Jul 2013
Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt8j55h1xj
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Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
  • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
  • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
  • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

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Cited by:

  1. Sabrina Jeworrek & Vanessa Mertins, 2014. "Wage Delegation in the Field," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201408, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
  2. Dodonova, Anna & Khoroshilov, Yuri, 2014. "Compensation and performance: An experimental study," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 304-307.

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