Choice over Payment Schemes and Worker Effort

Martin Abel and Rulof Burger

No 15769, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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.

Keywords: self determination; gift exchange; guilt aversion; labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D86 D91 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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