IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ide/wpaper/1852.html

Continuous Preferences Can Cause Discontinuous Choices : an Application to the Impact of Incentives on Altruism

Author

Listed:
  • Seabright, Paul

Abstract

Implementing incentive systems can sometimes backfire in practice: experimental evidence and folklore both suggest that offers of explicit rewards can expose surprising discontinuities in behaviour. This Paper models two such discontinuities that have been claimed by psychologists and experimental economists to constitute important exceptions to the standard economic theory of human motivation. The first (?type discontinuity?) is the observation of a discontinuity in the distribution across population types of values of the willingness to accept payment in return for performing certain (?civic?) actions, such as giving blood or performing public service. It is claimed that this distribution is bimodal, even discontinuous: many people have a zero WTA, many have a large positive WTA, but nobody has a small positive WTA. The second (?payment discontinuity?, also known as ?crowding-out?) is that people who are willing to perform certain actions for free will refuse to perform them for a low price, even if they subsequently agree to perform them if the price is raised enough. Civic virtue may, on this view, be crowded out by the introduction of explicit incentives; people may stop doing things they were previously prepared to do without reward. The Paper shows that both phenomena may be observed as a result of individuals? acting in a first period of public service in the knowledge that the terms of their action signal their type, and their type will affect a process of assortative matching in a second period. Type Discontinuity, but not Payment Discontinuity, is observed in a signaling game in which individuals announce the prices at which they will perform a civic action. Payment Discontinuity, but not Type Discontinuity, is observed in a screening game in which individuals have only a binary participation decision available to signal their type. The proportion of individuals participating when rewards are zero can be higher than when rewards are positive but small.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Seabright, Paul, 2004. "Continuous Preferences Can Cause Discontinuous Choices : an Application to the Impact of Incentives on Altruism," IDEI Working Papers 257, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    • Handle: RePEc:ide:wpaper:1852
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://tse-fr.eu/pub/1852
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/2004/continuous_preferences.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 1997. "The Cost of Price Incentives: An Empirical Analysis of Motivation Crowding-Out," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(4), pages 746-755, September.
    2. Kremer, M & Maskin, E, 1996. "Wage Inequality and Segregation by Skill," Working papers 96-23, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    3. Ghatak, Maitreesh, 1999. "Group lending, local information and peer selection," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 27-50, October.
    4. Robert Shimer & Lones Smith, 2000. "Assortative Matching and Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 343-370, March.
    5. Weiss, Yoram, 1997. "The formation and dissolution of families: Why marry? Who marries whom? And what happens upon divorce," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 81-123, Elsevier.
    6. Daron Acemoglu, 1999. "Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1259-1278, December.
    7. Larry Samuelson & George J. Mailath & Avner Shaked, 2000. "Endogenous Inequality in Integrated Labor Markets with Two-Sided Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 46-72, March.
    8. O. F. Hamouda & J. C.R. Rowley (ed.), 1997. "Paradoxes, Ambiguity and Rationality," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1271, March.
    9. Dow, William H. & Philipson, Tomas, 1996. "An empirical examination of the implications of assortative matching on the incidence of HIV," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 735-749, December.
    10. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    11. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:250:p:s119-39 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Friebel, Guido & Schnedler, Wendelin, 2011. "Team governance: Empowerment or hierarchical control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Bowles, Samuel & Hwang, Sung-Ha, 2008. "Social preferences and public economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1811-1820, August.
    3. Tore Ellingsen & Magnus Johannesson, 2008. "Pride and Prejudice: The Human Side of Incentive Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 990-1008, June.
    4. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    5. Canoy Marcel & Veld Daan L. in ’t, 2014. "How to Boost the Production of Free Services: In Search of the Holy Referee Grail," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 79-92, June.
    6. Joan Costa-Font & Mireia Jofre-Bonet & Steven T. Yen, 2013. "Not All Incentives Wash Out the Warm Glow: The Case of Blood Donation Revisited," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 529-551, November.
    7. Carl Mellström & Magnus Johannesson, 2008. "Crowding Out in Blood Donation: Was Titmuss Right?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(4), pages 845-863, June.
    8. Schnedler, Wendelin & Vanberg, Christoph, 2014. "Playing ‘hard to get’: An economic rationale for crowding out of intrinsically motivated behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 106-115.
    9. Dan Ariely & Anat Bracha & Stephan Meier, 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 544-555, March.
    10. Wildman, John & Hollingsworth, Bruce, 2009. "Blood donation and the nature of altruism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 492-503, March.
    11. Linardi, Sera & McConnell, Margaret A., 2011. "No excuses for good behavior: Volunteering and the social environment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 445-454, June.
    12. repec:awi:wpaper:0457 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. Seabright Paul B, 2009. "Continuous Preferences and Discontinuous Choices: How Altruists Respond to Incentives," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-28, April.
    2. Axel Anderson & Lones Smith, 2024. "The Comparative Statics of Sorting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(3), pages 709-751, March.
    3. Christina Håkanson & Erik Lindqvist & Jonas Vlachos, 2021. "Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 512-538.
    4. Schetter, Ulrich & Tejada, Oriol, 2018. "Globalization and the Concentration of Talent," VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy 181562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Alain Delacroix, 2000. "Matching Between Heterogeneous Workers and Firms," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1523, Econometric Society.
    6. Bidner, Chris, 2010. "Pre-match investment with frictions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 23-34, January.
    7. Aseem Kaul & Jiao Luo, 2018. "An economic case for CSR: The comparative efficiency of for‐profit firms in meeting consumer demand for social goods," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1650-1677, June.
    8. Lones Smith & Axel Anderson, 2002. "Assortative Matching, Reputation, and the Beatles Break-Up," Game Theory and Information 0201002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Jie, Yun, 2020. "Responding to requests for help: Effects of payoff schemes with small monetary units," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Yahagi, Ken, 2021. "Law enforcement with motivated agents," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2007. "The Evolution of Income and Fertility Inequalities over the Course of Economic Development: A Human Capital Perspective," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 137-174.
    12. Pokorny, Kathrin, 2008. "Pay--but do not pay too much: An experimental study on the impact of incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 251-264, May.
    13. Dirk Sliwka, 2007. "Trust as a Signal of a Social Norm and the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 999-1012, June.
    14. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    15. Lindeboom, Maarten & van der Klaauw, Bas & Vriend, Sandra, 2015. "The effect of audit regimes on applications for long-term care," CEPR Discussion Papers 10572, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Newman, George E. & Jeremy Shen, Y., 2012. "The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 973-983.
    17. Graafland, J.J. & Kaptein, M. & Mazereeuw V/d Duijn Schouten, C., 2010. "Motives of Socially Responsible Business Conduct," Other publications TiSEM 3053983b-5552-408c-86a4-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    19. Sandra E. Black & Lisa Lynch & Anya Krivelyova, 2003. "How Workers Fare When Employers Innovate," NBER Working Papers 9569, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Damiano Fiorillo, 2011. "Do Monetary Rewards Crowd Out The Intrinsic Motivation Of Volunteers? Some Empirical Evidence For Italian Volunteers," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 82(2), pages 139-165, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General
    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    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:ide:wpaper:1852. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idtlsfr.html .

    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.