We analyze a two-stage game between two heterogeneous players. At stage one, common risk is chosen by one of the players. At stage two, both players observe the given level of risk and simultaneously invest in a winner-take-all competition The game is solved theoretically and then tested by...

An increasing number of workers participate in online labor markets. In contrast to traditional employment relationships within firms, the interaction between online workers and their employers are short and impersonal, which makes motivating online workers more challenging. We present results...

In this paper we present results from a large scale real effort experiment in an online labor market investigating the effect of performance pay and two common leadership techniques: Positive expectations and specific goals. We find that positive expectations have a significant negative effect...

This paper develops a simple economic model to examine how leadership styles in organizations depend on the prevailing wage-setting conditions for workers. In particular, we examine a leader who can - in addition to the use of monetary incentives - motivate a worker by adopting leadership styles...

This paper develops a simple economic model to examine how leadership styles in organizations depend on the prevailing wage-setting conditions for workers. In particular, we examine a leader who can - in addition to the use of monetary incentives - motivate a worker by adopting leadership styles...

We conduct a field experiment in a controlled work environment to investigate the effect of motivational talk and its interaction with monetary incentives. We find that motivational talk significantly improves performance only if it is accompanied by performance pay. Moreover, performance pay...

We conducted a field experiment in a controlled work environment to investigate the effect of motivational talk and its interaction with monetary incentives. We find that motivational talk significantly improves performance only when accompanied by performance pay. Moreover, performance pay...

We present a model in which a motivator can take costly actions - or what we call motivational effort - in order to reduce the effort costs of a worker, and analyze the optimal combination of motivational effort and monetary incentives. We distinguish two cases. First, the firm owner chooses the...