A Change Would Do You Good.... An Experimental Study on How to Overcome Coordination Failure in Organizations

Jordi Brandts and David Cooper ()

American Economic Review, 2006, vol. 96, issue 3, 669-693

Abstract: We study how financial incentives can be used to overcome a history of coordination failure using controlled laboratory experiments. Subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels. In an initial phase, the benefits of coordination are low, and play typically converges to an inefficient outcome. We then explore varying financial incentives to coordinate at a higher effort level. An increase in the benefits of coordination leads to improved coordination, but large increases have no more impact than small increases. Once subjects have coordinated on a higher effort level, reductions in the incentives to coordinate have little effect on behavior. (JEL C92, D23, J31, L23, M52)

Date: 2006
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.96.3.669
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (222)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.96.3.669 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/june06_data_20040237.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/june06_app_20040237.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: A Change Would Do You Good... An Experimental Study on How to Overcome Coordination Failure in Organizations (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:96:y:2006:i:3:p:669-693

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().