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Estimating Social Preferences and Gift Exchange at Work

Stefano DellaVigna · John A. List · Ulrike M. Malmendier · Gautam Rao

74 citations0/0 files storedAmerican Economic Review

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Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research

Abstract

We design three field experiments to estimate how workers' social preferences toward their employer motivates their work effort. We vary the pay rates offered to workers, the return to the employer, and employer generosity demonstrated via unexpected gifts. Workers exert effort even without private incentives, but their effort is insensitive to the return to the employer. This is consistent with “warm glow” but not pure altruism. The gifts have no effect on productivity, but engender extra work. This difference is explained partly by the finding that extra work is much more responsive to incentives than is productivity. (JEL C93, J24, J28, J33, M52)

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References

1991Multitask Principal–Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design 2002Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests 2006Incentives and Prosocial Behavior 2000Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity 1982Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange 1989Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence 1974A Theory of Social Interactions 2003Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

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