Gift exchange and the separation of ownership and control

Sandra Maximiano, Randolph Sloof and Joep Sonnemans ()

Games and Economic Behavior, 2013, vol. 77, issue 1, 41-60

Abstract: Numerous gift-exchange experiments have found a positive wage–effort relationship. In (almost) all these experiments the employer both owns and controls the firm. This paper explores to what extent the separation of ownership and control affects the wage–effort relationship. We compare the standard bilateral gift-exchange game between an owner-manager and a worker with two trilateral ones where the firm is owned by a shareholder and controlled by a manager. The wage–effort relationship is similar in all three situations. Most strikingly, workers reward higher wages with higher effort, even when the manager does not share in the firmʼs profits.

Keywords: Gift exchange; Reciprocity; Ownership; Control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 D63 J31 J33 J50 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089982561200098X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Gift Exchange and the Separation of Ownership and Control (2006)
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:eee:gamebe:v:77:y:2013:i:1:p:41-60

DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2012.07.004

Access Statistics for this article

Games and Economic Behavior is currently edited by E. Kalai

More articles in Games and Economic Behavior from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().