An empirical investigation of gaming responses to explicit performance incentives

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Courty, P; Marschke, G
• 署名单位: University of London; London Business School; State University of New York (SUNY) System; University at Albany, SUNY
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/380402
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 23-56
• 关键词: training partnership act; CONTRACTS; STANDARDS; program

摘要

This article studies a particular kind of gaming responses to explicit incentives in a large government organization. The gaming responses we consider occur when agents strategically report their performance outcomes to maximize their awards. An important contribution of this work is to examine whether this behavior diverts resources (e.g., agents' time) from productive activities or whether it simply reflects an accounting phenomenon. We evaluate the efficiency impact of the behavior we identify and find that it has a negative impact on the true goal of the organization.