Work

In Search of Workers' Real Effort Reciprocity-a Field and a Laboratory Experiment

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: We present a field experiment to assess the effect of own and peer wage variations on actual work effort of employees with hourly wages. Work effort neither reacts to an increase of the own wage, nor to a positive or negative peer comparison. This result seems at odds with numerous laboratory experiments that show a clear own wage sensitivity on effort. In an additional real-effort laboratory experiment we show that explicit cost and surplus information that enables an exact calculation of an employer's surplus from the work contract is a crucial prerequisite for a positive wage–effort relation. This demonstrates that an employee's reciprocity requires a clear assessment of the surplus at stake.

Source: Journal of the European Economic Association

DOI: 10.1111/j.1542-4774.2010.tb00541.x

Authors: Heike Hennig-Schmidt, Abdolkarim Sadrieh, Bettina Rockenbach

Institutions: University of Bonn, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, University of Erfurt

Language: English

Topic: Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies

Subfield: Safety Research

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

Funder: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft