No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and B. Kelsey Jack

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: We conduct a field experiment to evaluate the effect of extrinsic rewards, both financial and non-financial, on the performance of agents recruited by a public health organization to promote HIV prevention and sell condoms. In this setting: (i) non-financial rewards are effective at improving performance; (ii) the effect of both types of rewards is stronger for pro-socially motivated agents; and (iii) both types of rewards are effective when their relative value is high. The findings illustrate that extrinsic rewards can improve the performance of agents engaged in public service delivery, and that non-financial rewards can be effective in settings where the power of financial incentives is limited.

Keywords: financial incentives; non-monetary rewards; pro-social motivation; public service delivery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 J33 M52 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (194)

Published in Journal of Public Economics, December, 2014, 120, pp. 1-17. ISSN: 0047-2727

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57214/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery (2014)
Working Paper: No Margin, no Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for public service delivery (2012)
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:ehl:lserod:57214

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().