High-Powered Performance Pay and Crowding Out of Nonmonetary Motives

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Huffman, David; Bognanno, Michael
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Temple University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2017.2846
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 4669-4680
• 关键词: Incentives; noncognitive skills; field experiment; Intrinsic motivation

摘要

A previous literature cautions that paying workers for performance might crowd out nonmonetary motives towork hard. Empirical evidence from the field, however, has been based on between-subjects designs that are best suited for detecting crowding out due to low-powered incentives. High-powered incentives in the workplace tend to increase output, but it is unknown whether this masks crowding out. This paper uses a within-subject experimental design and finds evidence that crowding out also extends to high-powered incentives in a real work setting with paid workers. There is individual heterogeneity, however, with a minority of workers reporting crowding in of motivation. Thus, the impact of performance pay might depend on the mix of worker types.