Suchergebnisse

The dissertation presents a collection of essays that deal with behavioral aspects on labor markets and focus especially on social interactions. Each Chapter from 2 to 5 represents one separate project/essay. In this general introduction, I will embed the four essays in the broader frame of behavioral labor economics and elucidate the relevance for agricultural markets....

Competitive bonuses are commonly used to promote higher productivity in the workplace. Yet, these types of incentives can have subsequent negative spillovers on coworkers' prosocial behavior. We revisit this question in a lab-in-the-field experiment and examine whether competition negatively affects Social Value Orientation (prosocial attitudes) in addition to contributions to a public good (cooperative behavior). By considering the context of a developing country, we contribute to replicating previous findings in White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) samples. We find that when the payment dispersion between winners and losers is high, competition reduces both cooperation and prosocial attitudes compared to a threshold payment. Mainly winners cooperate less under competition. A comparison with a random payment scheme suggests that rivalry might partly explain the crowding-out effect in other-regarding preferences. Under low payment dispersion, competition does not affect cooperation or prosocial attitudes.

Leaders often have to weigh ethical against monetary consequences. Such situations may evoke psychological costs from being dishonest and dismissing higher monetary benefits for others. In a within-subjects experiment, we analyze such a dilemma. We first measure individual dishonest behavior when subjects report the outcome of a die roll, which determines their payoffs. Subsequently, they act as leaders and report payoffs for a group including themselves. In our main treatment, subjects can apply for leadership, whereas in the control treatment, we assign leadership randomly. Results reveal that women behave more dishonestly as leaders while men behave similarly in both the individual and the group decision. For female leaders, we find that sorting into leadership is not related to individual honesty preferences. In the control we find that female leaders do not increase dishonesty. A followup study reveals that female leaders become more dishonest after assuming leadership, as they align dishonest behavior with their belief on group members' honesty preferences.

Leaders often weigh ethical against monetary consequences. We experimentally study such a dilemma where leaders can benefit their groups at the expense of moral costs. First, we measure individual dishonesty preferences and, second, leaders' reporting decisions for a group by using payoff-reporting games. We focus on an endogenous leadership setting, where subjects can apply for leadership. Women have less pronounced dishonesty preferences than men, but increase dishonesty as leaders. The increase disappears when leadership is randomly assigned. A follow-up study reveals that women leaders behave dishonestly when they believe their group members prefer dishonesty.