Arbeitspapier

Can Contracts Signal Social Norms? Experimental Evidence

We investigate whether incentive schemes signal social norms and thus affect behavior beyond their direct economic consequences. A principal-agent experiment is studied in which prior to contract choice principals are informed about past actions of other agents and thus have more information about norms of behavior. Compared to a setting with uninformed principals agents exert nearly 50% higher efforts under a fixed wage contract when an informed principal had chosen this contract. Apparently the informed principal's choice signals a norm not to exploit the trust which leads to more trustworthy behavior. This mechanism's robustness is explored in further experiments.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 7477

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
Economics of Contract: Theory
Thema
social norms
contracts
incentives
signaling
experiments

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Danilov, Anastasia
Sliwka, Dirk
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2013

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:46 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Danilov, Anastasia
  • Sliwka, Dirk
  • Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2013

Ähnliche Objekte (12)