IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenec/12222.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision

Author

Listed:
  • Dittrich, Dennis A. V.
  • Kocher, Martin G.

Abstract

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensity is endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensity and consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined by the maximization problem of the firm. As a result, monitoring and pay should be complements. In our experiment, between and within treatment variation is qualitatively in line with the normative predictions of the model under standard assumptions. Yet, we also find evidence for reciprocal behavior. Our data analysis shows, however, that it does not pay for the employer to solely rely on the reciprocity of employees.

Suggested Citation

  • Dittrich, Dennis A. V. & Kocher, Martin G., 2011. "Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision," Discussion Papers in Economics 12222, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenec:12222
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12222/1/Dittrich_Kocher_2011_mimeo_Monitoring_and_Pay.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eaton, Curtis & White, William D, 1983. "The Economy of High Wages: An Agency Problem," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 50(198), pages 175-181, May.
    2. Vital Anderhub & Simon Gächter & Manfred Königstein, 2002. "Efficient Contracting and Fair Play in a Simple Principal-Agent Experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 5-27, June.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Neal, Derek, 1993. "Supervision and Wages across Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(3), pages 409-417, August.
    5. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    6. Luft, Joan, 1994. "Bonus and penalty incentives contract choice by employees," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 181-206, September.
    7. Magnus Allgulin & Tore Ellingsen, 2002. "Monitoring and Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(2), pages 201-216, Part.
    8. Minkler, Lanse, 2004. "Shirking and motivations in firms: survey evidence on worker attitudes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 863-884, June.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    10. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gachter & Georg Kirchsteiger, 1997. "Reciprocity as a Contract Enforcement Device: Experimental Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(4), pages 833-860, July.
    11. Gary E Bolton & Axel Ockenfels, 1997. "A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1889, David K. Levine.
    12. Susan Athey & Scott Stern, 1998. "An Empirical Framework for Testing Theories About Complimentarity in Organizational Design," NBER Working Papers 6600, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Fairness, Incentives and Contractual Incompleteness," IEW - Working Papers 072, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Chang, Juin-jen & Lai, Ching-chong, 1999. "Carrots or sticks? A social custom viewpoint on worker effort," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 297-310, June.
    15. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    16. Leonard, Jonathan S, 1987. "Carrots and Sticks: Pay, Supervision, and Turnover," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 136-152, October.
    17. Kirchler, Erich & Fehr, Ernst & Evans, Robert, 1996. "Social exchange in the labor market: Reciprocity and trust versus egoistic money maximization," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 313-341, June.
    18. Canice Prendergast, 1999. "The Provision of Incentives in Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 7-63, March.
    19. Erica L. Groshen & Alan B. Krueger, 1990. "The Structure of Supervision and Pay in Hospitals," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 134-1-146-, April.
    20. R. Lynn Hannan & John H. Kagel & Donald V. Moser, 2002. "Partial Gift Exchange in an Experimental Labor Market: Impact of Subject Population Differences, Productivity Differences, and Effort Requests on Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 923-951, October.
    21. Gordon, David M, 1990. "Who Bosses Whom? The Intensity of Supervision and the Discipline of Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 28-32, May.
    22. Keser, Claudia & Willinger, Marc, 2000. "Principals' principles when agents' actions are hidden," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 163-185, January.
    23. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    24. Rebitzer, James B., 1995. "Is there a trade-off between supervision and wages? An empirical test of efficiency wage theory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 107-129, September.
    25. Athey, Susan. & Stern, Scott, 1969-, 1998. "An empirical framework for testing theories about complementarity in orgaziational design," Working papers WP 4022-98., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    26. Demougin, Dominique & Fluet, Claude, 2001. "Monitoring versus incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1741-1764, October.
    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. Yongjin Wang & Laixun Zhao, 2013. "Saving Good Jobs under Global Competition by Rewarding Quality and Efforts," Discussion Paper Series DP2013-17, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised May 2013.
    2. 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.
    3. Vera Mironova & Sam Whitt, 2017. "International Peacekeeping and Positive Peace," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 61(10), pages 2074-2104, November.

    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. Kocher, Martin & Dittrich, Dennis, 2006. "Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee under Endogenous Supervision," CEPR Discussion Papers 5962, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Alexander Klein & Klaus M Schmidt, 2007. "Fairness and Contract Design," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 121-154, January.
    3. Sessions, John G., 2008. "Wages, supervision and sharing," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 653-672, November.
    4. John G. Sessions & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2014. "Tenure, Wage Profiles and Monitoring," Research in Labor Economics, in: New Analyses of Worker Well-Being, volume 38, pages 105-162, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Sliwka, Dirk, 2003. "On the Hidden Costs of Incentive Schemes," IZA Discussion Papers 844, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Ourania Karakosta & Nikos Tsakiris, 2009. "Indirect Tax Reforms and Public Goods under Imperfect Competition," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 5-2009, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    7. Sang‐Moon Hahm & Katarina Mayer, 2011. "Equilibrium unemployment as a discipline device when finding employment is costly," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(2), pages 709-717, May.
    8. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2004. "Fairness and Incentives in a Multi‐task Principal–Agent Model," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(3), pages 453-474, October.
    9. John A. List, 2006. "The Behavioralist Meets the Market: Measuring Social Preferences and Reputation Effects in Actual Transactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-37, February.
    10. 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.
    11. Abeler, Johannes & Altmann, Steffen & Kube, Sebastian & Wibral, Matthias, 2006. "Reciprocity and Payment Schemes: When Equality Is Unfair," Ratio Working Papers 109, The Ratio Institute.
    12. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sliwka, Dirk, 2005. "Incentives, Decision Frames, and Motivation Crowding Out – An Experimental Investigation," IZA Discussion Papers 1758, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Fortuna Casoria & Arno Riedl, 2013. "Experimental Labor Markets And Policy Considerations: Incomplete Contracts And Macroeconomic Aspects," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 398-420, July.
    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. Ben-Ner, Avner & Kong, Fanmin & Lluis, Stéphanie, 2012. "Uncertainty, task environment, and organization design: An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 281-313.
    16. Cao, Cangjian & Li, Sherry Xin & Liu, Tracy Xiao, 2020. "A gift with thoughtfulness: A field experiment on work incentives," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 17-42.
    17. Brandes, Leif & Franck, Egon, 2012. "Social preferences or personal career concerns? Field evidence on positive and negative reciprocity in the workplace," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 925-939.
    18. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    19. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    20. Marco a. Barrenechea‐méndez & Pedro Ortín‐Ángel & Eduardo C. Rodes, 2016. "Autonomy and Monitoring," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 911-935, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    incentive contracts; supervision; efficiency wages; experiment; incomplete contracts; reciprocity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts

    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:lmu:muenec:12222. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.