Wage Elasticities in Working and Volunteering: The Role of Reference Points in a Laboratory Study

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Exley, Christine L.; Terry, Stephen J.
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Boston University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2017.2870
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 413-425
• 关键词: reference points; Wage elasticities; labor supply; Effort; Volunteering; prosocial behavior

摘要

We experimentally test how effort responds to wages-randomly assigned to accrue to individuals or to a charity-in the presence of expectations-based reference points or targets. When individuals earn money for themselves, higher wages lead to higher effort with relatively muted targeting behavior. When individuals earn money for a charity, higher wages instead lead to lower effort with substantial targeting behavior. A reference-dependent theoretical framework suggests an explanation for this differential impact: when individuals place less value on earnings, such as when accruing earnings for a charity instead of themselves, more targeting behavior and a more sluggish response to incentives should result. Results from an additional experiment add support to this explanation. When individuals select into earning money for a charity and thus likely place a higher value on those earnings, targeting behavior is muted and no longer generates a negative effort response to higher wages.