We test experimentally whether and why principals' charitable giving affects agents' efforts. We study a simple principal-agent setting in the lab, where a principal decides whether to donate a fixed amount to a charity and, in the next step, an agent chooses his effort. We argue there are three potential mechanisms that can trigger a higher effort after a donation in this setting: distributional concerns, reciprocal altruism, and shared warm glow utility. We find agents choose higher efforts when principals donate. With respect to the mechanisms, we find evidence for reciprocal altruism and distributional concerns as drivers of agents' performance reactions in the lab.

Social responsibility and incentives in the lab: Why do agents exert more effort when principals donate? / A. Kajackaite, D. Sliwka. - In: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION. - ISSN 0167-2681. - 142:(2017 Oct), pp. 482-493. [10.1016/j.jebo.2017.08.013]

Social responsibility and incentives in the lab: Why do agents exert more effort when principals donate?

A. Kajackaite
Primo
;
2017

Abstract

We test experimentally whether and why principals' charitable giving affects agents' efforts. We study a simple principal-agent setting in the lab, where a principal decides whether to donate a fixed amount to a charity and, in the next step, an agent chooses his effort. We argue there are three potential mechanisms that can trigger a higher effort after a donation in this setting: distributional concerns, reciprocal altruism, and shared warm glow utility. We find agents choose higher efforts when principals donate. With respect to the mechanisms, we find evidence for reciprocal altruism and distributional concerns as drivers of agents' performance reactions in the lab.
Corporate Social responsibility; Incentives; Reciprocity; Intentions; Equity; Experiment; Warm glow;
Settore SECS-P/06 - Economia Applicata
ott-2017
Article (author)
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/934359
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