Prosocial Motivation and Incentives

Timothy Besley and Maitreesh Ghatak

Annual Review of Economics, 2018, vol. 10, issue 1, 411-438

Abstract: This review explores the role of incentives in providing goods and services that have significant social returns not captured in private returns, and where outcomes and performances are not easy to measure. We discuss how the presence of prosocial motivation among agents involved in the provision of these goods and services changes the design of incentives. The review also emphasises how heterogeneous prosocial motivation puts a premium on selection of agents in this context. We also discuss alternative theories of prosocial motivation.

Keywords: motivated agents; prosocial behavior; public services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 D73 H41 J41 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Working Paper: Prosocial motivation and incentives (2018)
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