Performance Pay and Multidimensional Sorting - Productivity, Preferences and Gender

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies the impact of incentives on worker self-selection in a controlled laboratory experiment. Subjects face the choice between a fixed and a variable payment scheme. Depending on the treatment, the variable payment is a piece rate, a tournament or a revenue-sharing scheme. We find that output is higher in the variable pay schemes (piece rate, tournament, and revenue sharing) compared to the fixed payment scheme. This difference is largely driven by productivity sorting. In addition personal attitudes such as willingness to take risks and relative self-assessment as well as gender affect the sorting decision in a systematic way. Moreover, self-reported effort is significantly higher in all variable pay conditions than in the fixed wage condition. Our lab findings are supported by an additional analysis using data from a large and representative sample. In sum, our findings underline the importance of multi-dimensional sorting, i.e., the tendency for different incentive schemes to systematically attract people with different individual characteristics.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: SFB/TR 15 Discussion Paper ; No. 360

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Personnel Economics: Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Thema: Sorting ; Incentives ; Piece Rates ; Tournament ; Revenue-Sharing ; Risk Preferences ; Social Preferences ; Gender ; Experiment ; Field Evidence ; Leistungsentgelt ; Lohnstruktur ; Geschlecht ; Risikopräferenz ; Entscheidungstheorie ; Test

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Dohmen, Thomas ; Falk, Armin
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Sonderforschungsbereich/Transregio 15 - Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems (GESY)
• (wo): München
• (wann): 2011

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.5282/ubm/epub.13194
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/94163
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-13194-1
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ