Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/338357 
Year of Publication: 
2026
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 12393
Publisher: 
Munich Society for the Promotion of Economic Research - CESifo GmbH, Munich
Abstract: 
Awards are widely used as incentives. This paper situates awards in the broader incentives landscape and shows how the motivational value of awards can be understood through a framework that considers three sources of value: the tangible component of an award, the social signals it emits, and its self-signaling function. We identify and discuss several major characteristics of awards through the lenses of these three dimensions: the audience, scarcity, the giver’s status, and the selection process. Based on our framework, we integrate the awards literature published across economics, psychology, management, and sociology journals to elucidate what has been learned and offer a roadmap for future experimental research on awards and incentives.
Subjects: 
awards
incentives
self-signaling
social signaling
tangibility
JEL: 
D01
D91
J3
M12
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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