The Road to Hell: An Experimental Study of Intentions

Abstract

Do people care about intentions -even when good intentions do not produce good results?While the aphorism in the paper's title suggests that outcomes matter more than intentions, our study questions that assumption.Our experimental design builds on previous studies of intentions by introducing an element of chance in the wage-determination process in an experimental labor market.Rates of punishment and reward react strongly to intentions (the wage a firm decides to pay) and modestly to distributional outcomes (the higher or lower wage actually received after chance intervenes).For example, workers who receive "medium" wages are much kinder to a boss who tried to pay a high wage (but bad luck lowered the worker's pay) than they are to a boss who tried to pay a low wage (and good luck raised pay).

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