Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/208078 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 178
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, München und Berlin
Abstract: 
We conduct a field experiment where we vary both the presence of a gift-exchange wage and the effect of the worker's effort on the manager's payoff. Results indicate a strong complementarity between the initial wage-gift and the agent's ability to "repay the gift". We control for differences in ability and reciprocal inclination and show that gift-exchange is more effective with more reciprocal agents. We present a principal-agent model with reciprocal subjects that motivates our findings. Our results help to reconcile the conflicting evidence on the efficacy of gift-exchange outside the lab.
Subjects: 
incentives
field experiments
gift-exchange
reciprocity
JEL: 
C91
J33
M52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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