On the role of social wage comparisons in gift-exchange experiments

This study extends a bilateral gift exchange experiment by Clark et al. (2010) who investigate how feedback of information about wages paid in the market affects both employers' wage setting and workers' performance. We provide either quantitative or qualitative information on the average wage paid in all worker-employer-relationships, and we also study repeated relationships (fixedmatching). We find that information on the average wage reduces (increases) both wage offers and effort levels in one-shot (repeated) relationships.