Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers
Creation-Date: 2016-05-03
Number: 16-035/VII
Author-Name: Christiane Bradler
Author-Workplace-Name: ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany
Author-Name: Susanne Neckermann
Author-Workplace-Name: Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany
Author-Name: Arne Warnke
Author-Workplace-Name: ZEW Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany
Title: Incentivizing Creativity:  A Large-Scale Experiment with Tournaments and Gifts
Abstract: This paper reports the results from a large-scale laboratory experiment investigating the impact of tournament incentives and wage gifts on creativity. We find that tournaments substantially increase creative output, with no evidence for crowding out of intrinsic motivation. By comparison, wage gifts are ineffective. Additional treatments show that it is the uncertain mapping between effort and output that inhibits reciprocity. This uncertainty is prevalent in creative and other complex tasks. Our findings provide a rationale for the frequent use of tournaments when seeking to motivate creative output.
Classification-JEL: C91, D03, J33, M52
Keywords: creativity, incentives, tournament, reciprocity, experiment, crowding-out
File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/16035.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 337116 bytes
Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20160035