Pro-social motivation, effort and the call to public service

Sheheryar Banuri and Philip Keefer

European Economic Review, 2016, vol. 83, issue C, 139-164

Abstract: We investigate the interaction of pro-social motivation and wages in pro-social organizations with a novel subject pool, 1700 students destined for the private and public sectors in Indonesia, using a measure of pro-social motivation that exactly matches the mission of the organization. Three novel conclusions emerge. Consistent with a common, but untested, assumption in the theoretical literature, workers with greater pro-social motivation exert higher real effort. However, high pay attracts less pro-socially motivated individuals. Furthermore, we also test whether a real world pro-social organization (the Indonesian Ministry of Finance) attracts pro-socially motivated workers. We find that prospective entrants into the Indonesian Ministry of Finance exhibit higher levels of pro-social motivation than a comparable sample of general workers.

Keywords: Public sector reform; Civil service; Intrinsic motivation; Extrinsic motivation; Performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 H83 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (71)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:83:y:2016:i:c:p:139-164

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.10.011

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