IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp15769.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Choice over Payment Schemes and Worker Effort

Author

Listed:
  • Abel, Martin

    (Bowdoin College)

  • Burger, Rulof

    (Stellenbosch University)

Abstract

We study the effect of monetary incentives on effort in a prosocial task: writing letters encouraging voter turnout. Volunteers are randomized to receive no incentive, unconditional upfront payment, payment conditional on completing the task, or to have a choice between the two payment schemes. The unconditional and conditional payment both increase task completion rates by about 18 percentage points (43%). Giving people a choice between the payment scheme doubles the effect on task completion (35 p.p., 84%). Unlike unconditional payments, a choice over contracts also increases time spent on the task and letter quality. Survey responses suggest that giving people a choice is effective because it increases task ownership rather than the desire to return a favor or avoid feelings of guilt.

Suggested Citation

  • Abel, Martin & Burger, Rulof, 2022. "Choice over Payment Schemes and Worker Effort," IZA Discussion Papers 15769, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp15769.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Jäger & Benjamin Schoefer & Jörg Heining, 2021. "Labor in the Boardroom," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 136(2), pages 669-725.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier, 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(1), pages 1-56.
    3. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2011. "Reference Points and Effort Provision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 470-492, April.
    4. Philip Mellizo & Jeffrey Carpenter & Peter Hans Matthews, 2014. "Workplace democracy in the lab," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 313-328, July.
    5. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    6. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier & Gautam Rao, 2022. "Estimating Social Preferences and Gift Exchange at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(3), pages 1038-1074, March.
    7. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2008. "Anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity: Evidence from voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1047-1060, June.
    8. Roland Fryer & Steven Levitt & John List & Sally Sadoff, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00591, The Field Experiments Website.
    9. Martin Abel & Rulof Burger & Eliana Carranza & Patrizio Piraino, 2019. "Bridging the Intention-Behavior Gap? The Effect of Plan-Making Prompts on Job Search and Employment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 284-301, April.
    10. Björn Bartling & Ernst Fehr & Holger Herz, 2014. "The Intrinsic Value of Decision Rights," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2005-2039, November.
    11. James Andreoni & Michael Callen & Karrar Hussain & Muhammad Yasir Khan & Charles Sprenger, 2023. "Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 1428-1477.
    12. Ulrike Malmendier & Vera L. te Velde & Roberto A. Weber, 2014. "Rethinking Reciprocity," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 849-874, August.
    13. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2011. "Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting: Productivity, Preferences, and Gender," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 556-590, April.
    14. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1346-1361, December.
    15. Supreet Kaur & Michael Kremer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2015. "Self-Control at Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1227-1277.
    16. Bellemare, Charles & Sebald, Alexander & Suetens, Sigrid, 2019. "Guilt aversion in economics and psychology," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 52-59.
    17. Hunt Allcott & Judd B. Kessler, 2019. "The Welfare Effects of Nudges: A Case Study of Energy Use Social Comparisons," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 236-276, January.
    18. Neeraja Gupta & Luca Rigotti & Alistair Wilson, 2021. "The Experimenters' Dilemma: Inferential Preferences over Populations," Papers 2107.05064, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2021.
    19. Córdova, Angélica & Imas, Alex & Schwartz, Daniel, 2021. "Are non-contingent incentives more effective in motivating new behavior? Evidence from the field," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 602-615.
    20. Achyuta Adhvaryu & Teresa Molina & Anant Nyshadham, 2019. "Expectations, Wage Hikes, and Worker Voice: Evidence from a Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 25866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Stefano DellaVigna & Devin Pope, 2018. "What Motivates Effort? Evidence and Expert Forecasts," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 85(2), pages 1029-1069.
    22. Olivier Toubia & Eric Johnson & Theodoros Evgeniou & Philippe Delquié, 2013. "Dynamic Experiments for Estimating Preferences: An Adaptive Method of Eliciting Time and Risk Parameters," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(3), pages 613-640, June.
    23. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Eduardo Montero, 2022. "Cooperative Property Rights and Development: Evidence from Land Reform in El Salvador," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(1), pages 48-93.
    25. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    26. Uri Gneezy & John A List, 2006. "Putting Behavioral Economics to Work: Testing for Gift Exchange in Labor Markets Using Field Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1365-1384, September.
    27. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    28. repec:feb:framed:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    30. Uri Gneezy & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2014. "On The Relative Efficiency Of Performance Pay And Noncontingent Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 62-72, February.
    31. Lea Cassar & Stephan Meier, 2018. "Nonmonetary Incentives and the Implications of Work as a Source of Meaning," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 215-238, Summer.
    32. Craig, Ben & Pencavel, John, 1992. "The Behavior of Worker Cooperatives: The Plywood Companies of the Pacific Northwest," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1083-1105, December.
    33. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    34. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    35. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    36. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    37. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    38. David Balkin & Patrice Roussel & Steve Werner, 2015. "Performance Contingent Pay and Autonomy: Implications for Facilitating Extra-Role Creativity," Post-Print halshs-01233616, HAL.
    39. Edward P. Lazear, 2018. "Compensation and Incentives in the Workplace," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 195-214, Summer.
    40. Michael Kosfeld & Armin Falk, 2006. "The Hidden Costs of Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1611-1630, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    2. Alger, Ingela & Van Leeuwen, Boris, 2019. "Estimating Social Preferences and Kantian Morality in Strategic Interactions," IAST Working Papers 19-100, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), revised Nov 2023.
    3. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    4. Simon Gaechter & Esther Kessler & Manfred Koenigstein, 2011. "The roles of incentives and voluntary cooperation for contractual compliance," Discussion Papers 2011-06, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    5. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos,, 2013. "Do Social Incentives Matter? Evidence from an Online Real Effort Experiment," Review of Environment, Energy and Economics - Re3, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, January.
    6. Ackfeld, Viola & Ockenfels, Axel, 2021. "Do people intervene to make others behave prosocially?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 58-72.
    7. Breitmoser, Yves & Vorjohann, Pauline, 2018. "Welfare-Based Altruism," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 89, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    8. Cassar, Lea & Armouti-Hansen, Jesper & Dereky, Anna & Engl, Florian, 2021. "Efficiency Wages with Motivated Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 15723, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Jesper Armouti-Hansen & Lea Cassar & Anna Deréky & Florian Engl, 2020. "Efficiency Wages with Motivated Agents," CESifo Working Paper Series 8474, CESifo.
    10. Andreoni, James & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2021. "Time inconsistent charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    11. Fosgaard, Toke R. & Soetevent, Adriaan R., 2022. "I will donate later! A field experiment on cell phone donations to charity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 549-565.
    12. Alger, Ingela, 2022. "Evolutionarily stable preferences," TSE Working Papers 22-1355, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2022.
    13. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    14. Boosey, Luke & Goerg, Sebastian, 2020. "The timing of discretionary bonuses – effort, signals, and reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 254-280.
    15. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    16. Sebastian J. Goerg & Sebastian Kube & Jonas Radbruch, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Incentive Schemes in the Presence of Implicit Effort Costs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4063-4078, September.
    17. Aleksandr Alekseev, 2022. "Give me a challenge or give me a raise," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 170-202, February.
    18. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2011. "Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?," Department of Economics University of Siena 617, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    19. Jared Rubin & Roman Sheremeta, 2016. "Principal–Agent Settings with Random Shocks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(4), pages 985-999, April.
    20. Feine, Gregor & Groh, Elke D. & von Loessl, Victor & Wetzel, Heike, 2023. "The double dividend of social information in charitable giving: Evidence from a framed field experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    self determination; gift exchange; guilt aversion; labor supply;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp15769. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.