Can exit prizes induce lame ducks to shirk less? Experimental evidence

Leif Helland, Jon Hovi and Lars Monkerud
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Jon Hovi: University of Oslo and CICERO
Lars Monkerud: BI Norwegian Business School

European Journal of Government and Economics, 2012, vol. 1, issue 2, 106-125

Abstract: Elected representatives serving their final period face only weak incentives to provide costly effort. However, overlapping generations (OLG) models suggest that exit prizes sustained by trigger strategies can induce representatives in their final period to provide such effort. We evaluate this hypothesis using a simple OLG public good experiment, the central treatment being whether exit prizes are permitted. We find that a significantly higher number of subjects in their final period contribute when exit prizes are permitted. However, this result does not originate from use of trigger strategies. More likely explanations include gift-exchange and focal-point effects.

Keywords: overlapping generations; last period effects; legislatures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C7 C9 H4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12
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