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Your loss is my gain: a recruitment experiment with framed incentives

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  • de Quidt, Jonathan
Abstract
Empirically, labor contracts that financially penalize failure induce higher effort provision than economically identical contracts presented as paying a bonus for success, an effect attributed to loss aversion. This is puzzling, as penalties are infrequently used in practice. The most obvious explanation is selection: loss averse agents are unwilling to accept such contracts. I formalize this intuition, then run an experiment to test it. Surprisingly, I find that workers were 25 percent more likely to accept penalty contracts, with no evidence of adverse or advantageous selection. Consistent with the existing literature, penalty contracts also increased performance on the job by 0.2 standard deviations. I outline extensions to the basic theory that are consistent with the main results, but argue that more research is needed on the long-term effects of penalty contracts if we want to understand why firms seem unwilling to use them.

Suggested Citation

  • de Quidt, Jonathan, 2014. "Your loss is my gain: a recruitment experiment with framed incentives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58208, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:58208
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    Cited by:

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    2. Erwin Bulte & John List & Daan van Soest, 2019. "Toward an Understanding of the Welfare Effects of Nudges: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Uganda," Natural Field Experiments 00674, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Bulte, Erwin & List, John A. & van Soest, Daan, 2021. "Incentive spillovers in the workplace: Evidence from two field experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 137-149.
    4. Cala, Petr & Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Matousek, Jindrich & Novak, Jiri, 2022. "Financial Incentives and Performance: A Meta-Analysis of Economics Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 17680, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Ispano, Alessandro & Schwardmann, Peter, 2017. "Cooperating over losses and competing over gains: A social dilemma experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 329-348.
    6. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    7. Solomon Balew & Erwin Bulte & Zewdu Abro & Menale Kassie, 2023. "Incentivizing and nudging farmers to spread information: Experimental evidence from Ethiopia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(3), pages 994-1010, May.
    8. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca & Pupo, Valeria, 2020. "Selection and Incentives under Time Pressure: The Importance of Framing," IZA Discussion Papers 13474, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González, 2019. "Revisiting the Trade-off Between Risk and Incentives: The Shocking Effect of Random Shocks?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1096-1114, March.
    10. Taisuke Imai & Klaus M. Schmidt, 2023. "Loss Aversion," ISER Discussion Paper 1218, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    11. John List, 2020. "Experimental tests of the endowment effect and the Coase theorem," Natural Field Experiments 00687, The Field Experiments Website.
    12. Jonathan Quidt & Francesco Fallucchi & Felix Kölle & Daniele Nosenzo & Simone Quercia, 2017. "Bonus versus penalty: How robust are the effects of contract framing?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 174-182, December.
    13. Stephan Tontrup & Christopher Jon Sprigman, 2022. "Self‐nudging contracts and the positive effects of autonomy—Analyzing the prospect of behavioral self‐management," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), pages 594-676, September.
    14. Bauhoff,Sebastian Peter Alexander & Kandpal,Eeshani, 2021. "Information, Loss Framing, and Spillovers in Pay-for-Performance Contracts," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9687, The World Bank.
    15. Robert Hahn & Robert D. Metcalfe & David Novgorodsky & Michael K. Price, 2016. "The Behavioralist as Policy Designer: The Need to Test Multiple Treatments to Meet Multiple Targets," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2016-05, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    16. Dohmen, Thomas & Non, Arjan & Stolp, Tom, 2021. "Reference points and the tradeoff between risk and incentives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 813-831.
    17. Daniele Nosenzo, 2016. "Employee incentives: Bonuses or penalties?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 234-234, January.
    18. Ahrens, Steffen & Bitter, Lea & Bosch-Rosa, Ciril, 2023. "Coordination under loss contracts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 270-293.
    19. von Bieberstein, Frauke & Essl, Andrea & Friedrich, Kathrin, 2020. "Gain versus loss contracts: Does contract framing affect agents’ reciprocity?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    20. Essl, Andrea & Jaussi, Stefanie, 2017. "Choking under time pressure: The influence of deadline-dependent bonus and malus incentive schemes on performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 127-137.
    21. Taisuke Imai & Klaus Schmidt, 2023. "Loss Aversion," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 461, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    22. Alasdair Brown & Fuyu Yang, 2021. "Framing effects and the market selection hypothesis: Evidence from real‐world isomorphic bets," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 88(1), pages 399-413, July.
    23. Sebastian Fest & Ola Kvaløy & Petra Nieken & Anja Schöttner, 2019. "Motivation and incentives in an online labor market," CESifo Working Paper Series 7526, CESifo.
    24. Francesco Fallucchi & Marc Kaufmann, 2021. "Narrow Bracketing in Work Choices," Papers 2101.04529, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    loss aversion; reference points; framing; selection; mechanical turk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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