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.
- Language
-
Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
-
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 7477
- Classification
-
Wirtschaft
Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual
Economics of Contract: Theory
- Subject
-
social norms
contracts
incentives
signaling
experiments
- Event
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Danilov, Anastasia
Sliwka, Dirk
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
-
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
- (where)
-
Bonn
- (when)
-
2013
- Handle
- Last update
-
10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET
Data provider
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ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Danilov, Anastasia
- Sliwka, Dirk
- Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2013
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