Empirical research suggests that - rather than improving incentives - exerting control can reduce workers' performance by eroding motivation. The present paper shows that intention-based reciprocity can cause such motivational crowding-out if individuals differ in their propensity for...

This theoretical paper explores the impact of gender diversity on team production. The key assumption is that men derive utility from signaling high ability to female colleagues. The analysis shows that some gender diversity maximizes expected team production if (i) men and women have similar...

Although the elderly are more vulnerable to COVID-19, the empirical evidence suggests that they do not behave more cautiously in the pandemic than younger individuals. This theoretical model argues that some individuals might not comply with the COVID-19 measures to reassure themselves that they...

This article studies whether people want to control which information on their own past pro-social behavior is revealed to other people. Participants in an experiment are assigned a color which depends on their own past pro-sociality. They can then spend money to increase or decrease the...

In this laboratory experiment we study the use of strategic ignorance to delegate real authority within a firm. A worker can gather information on investment projects, while a manager makes the implementation decision. The manager can monitor the worker. This allows her to better exploit the...

Organizations must not only take the right decisions, they must also ensure that these decisions are effectively implemented. Fama & Jensen (1983) argue that the same members of many organization are often responsible for both decision initiation and implementation. If these have social...

Team production is a frequent feature of modern organizations. Combined with team incentives, team production can create externalities among workers, since their utility upon accepting a contract depends on their team's performance and therefore on their colleagues' productivity. We study the...

In a laboratory experiment, we measure subjects' willingness to pay for a transparently useless decision right concerning the choice between two real effort tasks. We also elicit for each participant her change in beliefs about the likelihood of receiving her preferred task if she rather than...

Self-signaling theory argues that individuals partly behave prosocially to create or uphold a favorable self-image. To study self-signaling theory, we investigate whether increasing self-image concerns affects charitable giving. In our experiment subjects divide 20 euros between themselves and a...

We study strategic interaction in an experimental social-preferences vacuum chamber. We mute social preferences by letting participants knowingly interact with computers. Our new design allows for indirect strategic interaction: there are several waves in which computer players inherit the...