Working Paper: NBER ID: w16687
Authors: Philip Babcock; Kelly Bedard; Gary Charness; John Hartman; Heather Royer
Abstract: This paper estimates social effects of incentivizing people in teams. In two field experiments featuring exogenous team formation and opportunities for repeated social interactions, we find large team effects that operate through social channels. The team compensation system induced agents to choose effort as if they valued a marginal dollar of compensation for their teammate from two-thirds as much (in one study) to twice as much as they valued a dollar of their own compensation (in the other study). We conclude that social effects of monetary team incentives exist and can induce effort at lower cost than through direct individual payment.
Keywords: team incentives; social effects; effort elicitation; field experiments
JEL Codes: B49; C93; J01; J33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| team-based incentives (J33) | individual effort (D29) |
| social effects of monetary team incentives (M52) | individual effort (D29) |
| team treatment attendance (C92) | individual effort (D29) |
| value of marginal dollar for teammate (C79) | individual effort (D29) |
| anonymous team treatment performance (C92) | individual effort (D29) |
| pay-for-exercise experiment (C90) | individual effort (D29) |
| social effects of team compensation (M52) | effort-intensive tasks (J24) |