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Effects of incentive framing on performance and effort: evidence from a medically framed experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2025

Mylène Lagarde*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Policy, London School of Economics, Houghton Street London, UK
Duane Blaauw
Affiliation:
Centre for Health Policy, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
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Abstract

We study the effects on performance of incentives framed as gains or losses, as well as the effort channels through which individuals increase performance. We also explore potential spill-over effects on a non-incentivised activity. Subjects participated in a medically framed real-effort task under one of the three contracts, varying the type of performance incentive received: (1) no incentive; (2) incentive framed as a gain; or (3) incentive framed as a loss. We find that performance improved similarly with incentives framed as losses or gains. However, individuals increase performance differently under the two frames: potential losses increase participants’ performance through a greater attention (fewer mistakes), while bonuses increase the time spent on the rewarded activity. There is no spill-over effect, either negative or positive, on the non-incentivised activity. We discuss the meaning and implications of our results for the design of performance contracts.

Information

Type
Original Paper
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s)
Figure 0

Fig. 1 Performance in the data entry activity, by treatment

Figure 1

Table 1 Impact of financial incentives on performance in data entry

Figure 2

Table 2 Impact of financial incentives on effort persistence and intensity in data entry

Figure 3

Table 3 Impact of financial incentives on effort and performance in diagnosis identification (non-incentivised activity)

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Lagarde and Blaauw supplementary material

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