Social Comparison and Performance: Experimental Evidence on the Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis

Simon Gaechter () and Christian Thoeni ()
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Simon Gaechter: University of Nottingham
Christian Thoeni: University of St. Gallen
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Christian Thöni and Simon Gächter

No 2009-23, Discussion Papers from The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham

Abstract: We investigate the impact of wage comparisons for worker productivity. We present three studies which all use three-person gift-exchange experiments. Consistent with Akerlof and Yellen's (1990) fair wage-effort hypothesis we find that disadvantageous wage discrimination leads to lower efforts while advantageous wage discrimination does not increase efforts on average. Two studies allow us to measure wage comparison effects at the individual level. We observe strongly heterogeneous wage comparison effects. We also find that reactions to wage discrimination can be attributed to the underlying intentions of discrimination rather than to payoff consequences.

Keywords: fair wage-effort hypothesis; wage comparison; gift exchange; horizontal fairness; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social comparison and performance: Experimental evidence on the fair wage-effort hypothesis (2010)
Working Paper: Social Comparison and Performance: Experimental Evidence on the Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis (2010)
Working Paper: Social Comparison and Performance: Experimental Evidence on the Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:not:notcdx:2009-23

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