Many economic, political and social environments can be described as contests in which
agents exert costly effort while competing over the distribution of a scarce resource. These …

We review the evidence on social incentives, namely on how social interactions with
colleagues, subordinates, bosses, customers, and others shape agents' effort choices in …

Despite years of research and practice, dissatisfaction with performance appraisal is at an
all-time high. Organizations are contemplating changes to their performance management …

We explore the power of behavioral economics to influence the level of effort exerted by
students in a low stakes testing environment. We find a substantial impact on test scores …

This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the
causal effect of unannounced, public recognition on employee performance. We hired more …

Rank-order relative-performance evaluation, in which pay, promotion, symbolic awards, and
educational achievement depend on the rank of individuals in the distribution of …

In many innovation settings, ideas are generated over time and managers face a decision
about if and how to provide in‐process feedback to the idea generators about the quality of …

Money is the prime incentive considered in economic models. However, recent evidence
indicates that people are also greatly concerned about their social rankings. Is this solely …

Performance rankings are a very common workplace management practice. Behavioral
theories suggest that providing performance rankings to employees, even without pecuniary …

Public recognition is frequently used to motivate desirable behavior, yet its welfare effects—
such as costs of shame or gains from pride—are rarely measured. We develop a portable …