Effort and comparison income
Subtitle: experimental and survey evidence
By: Andrew E. Clark, David Masclet and Marie-Claire Villeval.
Contributors: Masclet, David.; Villeval, M. C.; London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance.
Series: CEP discussion paper -- no. 886
Publisher: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics and Political Science
Published: 2008
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: This paper considers the effect of status or relative income on work effort, combining experimental evidence from a gift-exchange game with the analysis of multi-country ISSP survey data. We find a consistent negative effect of others' incomes on individual effort in both datasets. The individual's rank in the income distribution is a stronger determinant of effort than is others' average income, suggesting that comparisons are more ordinal than cardinal. In the experiment, effort is also affected by comparisons over time: those who received higher income offers or enjoyed higher income rank in the past exert lower levels of effort for a given current income and rank.
Notes: Title from PDF file (viewed on Oct. 10, 2008).

"August 2008."

Includes bibliographical references.

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