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Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
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Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Nava Ashraf
  • Oriana Bandiera
  • Scott Lee

Abstract

Organizations often use awards to incentivize performance. We design a field experiment to unbundle the mechanisms through which awards may affect behavior: by facilitating social comparison and by conferring recognition and visibility. In a nationwide health worker training program in Zambia, employer recognition and social visibility increase performance while social comparison reduces it, especially for low-ability trainees. These effects appear when treatments are announced and persist through training. The findings are consistent with a model of optimal expectations in which low-ability individuals exert low effort in order to avoid information about their relative ability.

Suggested Citation

  • Nava Ashraf & Oriana Bandiera & Scott Lee, 2013. "Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 046, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:stieop:046
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    awards; social comparison; optimal expectations; incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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