http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/2547/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40300/ 2013-04-01T00:00:00Z We ran a field experiment in a Dutch retail chain consisting of 128 stores. In a random sample of these stores, we introduced short-term sales competitions among subsets of stores. We find that sales competitions have a large effect on sales growth, but only in stores where the store's manager and a sufficiently large fraction of the employees have the same gender. Remarkably, results are alike for sales competitions with and without monetary rewards, suggesting a high symbolic value of winning a tournament. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37765/ 2012-08-01T00:00:00Z We assess whether public sector employees have a stronger inclination to serve others and are more risk averse than employees in the private sector. A unique feature of our study is that we use revealed rather than stated preferences data. Respondents of a large-scale survey were offered a substantial reward and could choose between a widely redeemable gift certificate, a lottery ticket, or making a donation to a charity. Our analysis shows that public sector employees are significantly less likely to choose the risky option (lottery) and, at the start of their career, significantly more likely to choose the pro-social option (charity). However, when tenure increases, this difference in pro-social inclinations disappears and, later on, even reverses. Further, our results suggest that quite a few public sector employees do not contribute to charity because they feel that they already contribute enough to society at work for too little pay. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25711/ 2011-08-01T00:00:00Z We conduct a field experiment in a large retail chain to test basic predictions of tournament theory regarding prize spread and noise. A random subset of the 208 stores participates in two-stage elimination tournaments. Tournaments differ in the distribution of prize money across winners of the first and second round of the tournament. As predicted by theory, we find that a more convex prize spread increases performance in the second round at the expense of first-round performance, although the magnitude of these effects is small. Moreover, the treatment effect is significantly larger for stores that historically have relatively stable performance as compared to stores with more noisy performance. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/25709/ 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of good management for firm performance. Here, we focus on management in not-for-profits (NFPs). We present a model predicting that management quality will be lower in NFPs compared to for-profits (FPs), but that outputs may not be worse if managers are altruistic. Using a tried and tested survey of management practices, we find that NFPs score lower than FPs but also that, while the relationship between management scores and outputs holds for FPs, the same is not true for NFPs. One implication is that management practices that work for FPs may be less effective in driving performance in NFPs. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21921/ 2010-12-17T00:00:00Z Recent onderzoek laat zien dat vrouwen minder snel voor een competitieve omgeving kiezen dan mannen, en soms ook minder goed presteren onder competitie. In een veldexperiment zijn de gevolgen hiervan voor gedrag op de werkvloer onderzocht. Teamsamenstelling blijkt cruciaal. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21864/ 2010-12-01T00:00:00Z We conduct a field experiment among 189 stores of a retail chain to study dynamic incentive effects of relative performance pay. Employees in the randomly selected treatment stores could win a bonus by outperforming three comparable stores from the control group over the course of four weeks. Treatment stores received weekly feedback on relative performance. Control stores were kept unaware of their involvement, so that their performance generates exogenous variation in the relative performance of the treatment stores. As predicted by theory, treatment stores that lag far behind do not respond to the incentives, while the responsiveness of treatment stores close to winning a bonus increases in relative performance. On average, the introduction of the relative performance pay scheme does not lead to higher performance. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/20324/ 2010-10-01T00:00:00Z The quality of public management is a recurrent concern in many countries. Calls to attract the economy's best and brightest managers to the public sector abound. This paper studies self-selection into managerial positions in the public and private sector, using a model of a perfectly competitive economy where people differ in managerial ability and in public service motivation. We find that, if demand for public sector output is not too high, the equilibrium return to managerial ability is always higher in the private sector. As a result, relatively many of the more able managers self-select into the private sector. Since this outcome is efficient, our analysis implies that attracting a more able managerial workforce to the public sector by increasing remuneration to private-sector levels is not cost-efficient. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/16517/ 2009-07-31T00:00:00Z We ran a field experiment in a Dutch retail chain consisting of 128 stores. In a random sample of these stores, we introduced short-term sales competitions among subsets of stores. We find that sales competitions have a large effect on sales growth, but only in stores where the store's manager and a large fraction of the employees have the same gender. Remarkably, results are alike for sales competitions with and without monetary rewards, suggesting a high symbolic value of winning a tournament. Lastly, despite the substantial variation in team size, we find no evidence for free-riding. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/14050/ 2008-10-14T00:00:00Z The quality of public management is a recurrent concern in many countries. Calls to attract the economy's best and brightest managers to the public sector abound. This paper studies self-selection into managerial and non-managerial positions in the public and private sector, using a model of a perfectly competitive economy where people differ in managerial ability and in public service motivation. We find that, if demand for public sector output is not too high, the equilibrium return to managerial ability is always highest in the private sector. As a result, relatively many of the more able managers self-select into the private sector. Since this outcome is efficient, our analysis implies that attracting a more able managerial workforce to the public sector by increasing remuneration to private-sector levels is not cost-efficient. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/27489/ 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Civil servants have a reputation for being lazy. However, people's personal experiences with civil servants frequently run counter to this stereotype. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive contracts for public sector workers under different informational assumptions. When civil servants'effort is unverifiable, lazy workers find working in the public sector highly attractive and may crowd out dedicated workers. When effort is verifiable, a cost-minimising government optimally attracts dedicated workers as well as the economy's laziest workers by offering separating contracts, which are both distorted. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8462/ 2007-01-18T00:00:00Z The starting point of this thesis has been the premise that people not solely work for money, and that working is not an altogether dreadful experience. Although many people will agreewith thisstatement, economic models of human behaviour at the workplace often assume exactly the opposite. Applying the techniques used in standard economic analysis, this thesis has examined the implications of heterogeneity in the intrinsic motivation of workers for optimal monetary incentive schemes and for the recruitment and selection of employees. Furthermore, the thesis has looked into the relation between workers’ satisfaction with various aspects of their job and their decision whether or not to search for another job, and if so, where to look for or take up a new position. Here, we summarise the main findings and give some suggestions for further research. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/8409/ 2007-01-11T00:00:00Z Physicians are supposed to serve patients' interests, but some are more inclined to do so than others. This paper studies how the system of health care provision affects the allocation of patients to physicians when physicians differ in altruism. We show that allowing for private provision of health care, parallel to (free) treatment in a National Health Service, benefits all patients. It enables rich patients to obtain higher quality treatment in the private sector. Because the altruistic physicians infer that in their absence, NHS patients receive lower treatment quality than private sector patients, they optimally decide to work in the NHS. Hence, after allowing for private provision, the remaining (relatively poor) NHS patients are more likely to receive the superior treatment provided by altruistic physicians. We also show, however, that allowing physicians to moonlight, i.e. to operate in both the NHS and the private sector simultaneously, nullifies part of these beneficial effects for the poorest patients. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/7092/ 2005-10-21T00:00:00Z Using survey data of public sector employees in the Netherlands, this paper shows that workers' satisfaction with various job domains not only affects whether but also where workers search for another job. An intuitive pattern emerges. Workers try to leave their current employer when their job search is instigated by dissatisfaction with an organisation-specific job domain, like management. Conversely, more job-specific problems, like a lack of autonomy, lead workers to opt for another position within their current organisation. Dissatisfaction with job domains which may have an industry-specific component, such as job duties, drives workers out of their industry. These findings suggest that on-the-job experience provides workers with information about the quality of their own job as well as of other jobs in their organisation and industry. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6812/ 2005-05-01T00:00:00Z This paper develops a model in which workers to a certain extent like to exert effort at the workplace. We examine the implications of workers' motivation for optimal monetary incentive schemes. We show that in the optimum motivated workers work harder and are willing to work for a lower wage. In addition, we examine whether job seekers have an incentive to be truthful about their motivation in a job interview. When the firm has sufficient bargaining power, workers hide their motivation so as to increase the firm's wage offer. As a result, an inefficient allocation of workers over firms may arise. We show that a commitment to a minimum wage may help to restore allocational efficiency and may be in the interest of the firm. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6593/ 2005-03-01T00:00:00Z This paper employs survey data on the reasons to quit of Dutch job changers who entered or left a public sector job in 2001. We show that workers' reasons to quit their public sector job influence their decision to stay in or leave their industry of employment. A bad experience with, for instance, pay, work pressure, or job duties makes a change in industry more likely. Likewise, many workers who quit out of dissatisfaction with pay or management leave the public sector altogether. Lastly, it is shown that workers' reasons to quit fully explain the differences in wage growth between intra- and interindustry job movers. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6642/ 2005-03-01T00:00:00Z Civil servants have a bad reputation of being lazy. However, citizens' personal experiences with civil servants appear to be significantly better. We develop a model of an economy in which workers differ in laziness and in public service motivation, and characterise optimal incentive contracts for public sector workers under different informational assumptions. When civil servants' effort is unverifiable, lazy workers find working in the public sector highly attractive and may crowd out workers with a public service motivation. When effort is verifiable, the government optimally attracts motivated workers as well as the economy's laziest workers by offering separating contracts, which are both distorted. Even though contract distortions reduce aggregate welfare, a majority of society may be better off as public goods come at a lower cost. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6793/ 2002-12-02T00:00:00Z This paper examines the consequences of creating a fully competitive market in a sector previously dominated by a cost-minimising public firm. Workers in the economy are heterogenous in their motivation to work in the sector. In line with empirical findings, our model implies that firms in the competitive market provide stronger monetary incentives to workers, reach higher productivity, and employ less workers than the public firm. Allocative efficiency therefore increases. Nevertheless, prices of the sector's output rise as competition between private firms for the best motivated workers leads to higher wage cost than under the public monopsony.