Material incentives and effort choice: Evidence from an online experiment across countries

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Davies, Elwyn; Fafchamps, Marcel
• 署名单位: The World Bank; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2025.08.015
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Work incentives; labor contracts; Intrinsic motivation; Conditional cooperation; Cross-country comparisons

摘要

We conduct an interactive online experiment framed as an employment contract. Subjects from the US, India, and Africa are matched within and across countries. Employers make a one-period offer to a worker who can either decline or choose a high or low effort. The offer is restricted to be from a variable set of possible contracts. High effort is always efficient. Some observed choices are well predicted by self-interest, but others are better explained by conditional reciprocity or intrinsic motivation. Subjects from India and Africa follow intrinsic motivation and provide high effort more often. US subjects are more likely to follow self-interest and reach a less efficient outcome on average, but workers earn slightly more. We find no evidence of stereotypes across countries. Individual characteristics and stated attitudes toward worker incentives do not predict the behavioral differences observed between countries, consistent with cultural differences in the response to labor incentives.