Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/62483 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6716
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Contributing to a social cause can be an important driver for workers in the public and non-profit sector as well as in firms that engage in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. This paper compares the effectiveness of social incentives to financial incentives using an online real effort experiment. We find that social incentives lead to a 20% rise in productivity, regardless of their form (lump sum or related to performance) or strength. When subjects can choose the mix of incentives half sacrifice some of their private compensation to increase social compensation, with women more likely than men. Furthermore, social incentives do not attract less productive subjects, nor subjects that respond more to exogenously imposed social incentives. Our calculations suggest that a dollar spent on social incentives is equivalent to increasing private compensation by at least half a dollar.
Subjects: 
private incentives
social incentives
sorting
prosocial behavior
real effort experiment
corporate social responsibility
gender
JEL: 
D64
J24
J32
L3
M14
M52
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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