Cooperation and Competition in Intergenerational Experiments in the Field and the Laboratory

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Charness, Gary; Villeval, Marie-Claire
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon (ENS de LYON); Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1; Universite Jean Monnet; Universite Lyon 2
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.3.956
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 956-978
• 关键词: diversity; trust; performance; teams; games; AGE

摘要

There is economic pressure to postpone the retirement age, but employers are still reluctant to employ older workers. We investigate the comparative behavior of juniors and seniors in experiments conducted both onsite with the employees of two large firms and in a conventional laboratory environment with students and retirees. We show that seniors are no more risk averse than juniors and are typically more cooperative; both juniors and working seniors respond strongly to competition. The implication is that it may be beneficial to define additional incentives near the end of the career to motivate and retain older workers. (JEL C90, J14, J26, M12, M51)