The application of the classical "linear" model of incentive pay to the case when the noise is multiplicative to effort generates two predictions for a given strength of incentives: 1) more risk-averse workers will put in less effort, and 2) setting a performance target will weaken the negative...

We study the effect of recognition on performance with a field experiment involving first-year undergraduate students at a Dutch university. Our treatment, given unannounced in randomly selected student groups, was to publicly recognize students who scored within the top 30% of their group on...

In a field experiment in China, we informed randomly selected workers that others received a higher wage for the same work. Compared to the uninformed but equally paid workers, the informed perceived their pay as less fair, but, surprisingly, increased their output without reducing quality....