We present a field experiment to assess the effect of own and peer wage variations on actual work effort of employees with hourly wages. Work effort neither reacts to an increase of the own wage, nor to a positive or negative peer comparison. This result seems at odds with numerous laboratory...

We report on a two-person bargaining experiment, where both players were represented by groups of three persons each. The discussions within the groups were recorded on video tapes and have been transcribed into text protocols. Analyzing the final payoffs and proposals we got several results...

We analyze how physicians, medical students, and non-medical students respond to nancial incentives from fee-for-service and capitation. We employ a series of artefactual eld and conventional lab experiments framed in a physician decision-making context. Physicians, participating in the eld, and...

Quality improvements in markets for medical care are key objectives in any Health reform. An important question is whether disclosing physicians’ performance can contribute to achieving these goals. Due to the asymmetric information inherent in medical markets, one may argue that changes in...

Mixed payment systems have become a prominent alternative to paying physicians through fee-for-service and capitation. While theory shows mixed payment systems to be superior, empirically, causal effects on physicians’ behavior are not well understood when introducing mixed systems. We...

Pay-for-performance schemes targeting quality improvements and cost reductions in markets for medical care have become increasingly popular among health policy- makers during the last decade. Typically, such schemes attach financial incentives to a set of indicators which consist of some...

Other-regarding motivation is a fundamental determinant of public service provision. In health care, one example is physicians who act benevolently towards their patients when providing medical services. Such patient-regarding motivation seems closely associated with a personal sacrifice that...

We experimentally investigate multiple notions of equity in ultimatum bargaining with asymmetric outside options. Building on the generalized equity principle formulated by Selten (1978), we derive three different equity rules that can explain 43% of all offers. Our within-subject design further...

Many of real-world public-goods are characterized by a marginal per capita return (MPCR) close to zero and have to be provided by large groups. Up until now, there is almost no evidence on how large groups facing a low MPCR behave in controlled public-good laboratory experiments involving...

Recent reforms in health care have introduced a variety of pay-for-performance programs using financial incentives for physicians to improve the quality of care. Their effectiveness is, however, ambiguous as it is often difficult to disentangle the effect of financial incentives from the ones of...