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Social comparisons in wage delegation: Experimental evidence

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  • 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.
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  • Charness, Gary & Cobo-Reyes, Ramon & Lacomba, Juan A & Lagos, Francisco & Perez, Jose M, 2013. "Social comparisons in wage delegation: Experimental evidence," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt8j55h1xj, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt8j55h1xj
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    Cited by:

    1. repec:eee:jeborg:v:149:y:2018:i:c:p:74-87 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. 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).
    3. Marco Faillo & Luigi Mittone & Costanza Piovanelli, 2018. "Cash posters in the lab," CEEL Working Papers 1801, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    4. Marco Faillo & Costanza Piovanelli, 2017. "Wage delegation and intrinsic motivation: an experimental study," CEEL Working Papers 1701, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    5. Dodonova, Anna & Khoroshilov, Yuri, 2014. "Compensation and performance: An experimental study," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 304-307.

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    Keywords

    Social and Behavioral Sciences;

    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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