Within social situations free-riding individuals can be informally punished through social ostracism; ostracized group members are removed from the social aspect of the group but are still formally members. In this study we examine the effectiveness of non-monetary social ostracism as a...

Abstract: Many incentive plans do not include an explicit mapping between workers’ performance and compensation. Potential employees therefore face both risk and uncertainty when choosing whether to accept an employment contract. Using an online labor market, Amazon Mechanical Turk, we...

In this paper, we examine how interrogators can get potential sources to provide information which entails defecting from their group. In our experiment, subjects are faced with an interrogator either using coercive techniques or offering rewards. We argue that coercion and reward affect...

Many incentive plans are inherently ambiguous, lacking an explicit mapping between performance and compensation. Using an online labor market, Amazon Mechanical Turk, we study the effect of ambiguity on willingness to accept contracts to do a real-effort task as well as completion and...

Empirical studies investigating work motivation over time find people with fluctuating wages work more on days when their wage rate is lower compared to when wages are higher. The authors of these studies theorize individuals use daily income goals and stop working once they reach their goal....

We explore the behavior of losers of promotion tournaments after the tournament is concluded. We do so through the use of an experiment in which we vary the design of the promotion tournament to determine how tournament design affects post tournament effort. We provide a theoretical model...

Traditionally, larger than equilibrium allocations by proposers in Dictator Games (gifts) have been explained by aspects of altruism, reciprocity, and fairness. However, this assumes the gift to be mutually desirable to the proposer and responder. Giving may also be driven by a desire of the...

Are productivity increases from small amounts of stress (or shocks) in an economic task dependent upon the content of the shock? It has been found small amounts of stress can lead to an increase in memory. We examine if the same is true with productivity in an economic experiment and whether it...

We explore the behavior of losers of promotional tournaments after the tournament is concluded. We do so through the use of an experiment in which we vary the design of the promotion tournament to determine how tournament design affects effort. We provide a theoretical model demonstrating two...

In this paper, we examine how interrogators can get potential sources to provide information which entails defecting from their group. In our experiment, subjects are faced with an interrogator either using coercive techniques or offering rewards. We argue that coercion and reward affect...