Reporting Peers’ Wrongdoing: Evidence on the Effect of Incentives on Morally Controversial Behavior

Author:

Fiorin Stefano1

Affiliation:

1. Ettore Bocconi Department of Economics and LEAP, Bocconi University , Milan, Italy

Abstract

Abstract I show that offering monetary rewards to whistleblowers can backfire as a moral aversion to being paid for harming others can reverse the effect of financial incentives. I run a field experiment with employees of the Afghan Ministry of Education, who are asked to confidentially report on their colleagues’ attendance. I use a two-by-two design, randomizing whether or not reporting absence carries a monetary incentive as well as the perceived consequentiality of the reports. In the consequential treatment arm, where employees are given examples of the penalties that might be imposed on absentees, 15% of participants choose to denounce their peers when reports are not incentivized. In this consequential group, rewards backfire: Only 10% of employees report when denunciations are incentivized. In the non-consequential group, where participants are guaranteed that their reports will not be forwarded to the government, only 6% of employees denounce absence without rewards. However, when moral concerns of harming others are limited through the guarantee of non-consequentiality, rewards do not backfire: The incentivized reporting rate is 12%.

Funder

UCSD

IRB

AEA

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

General Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Reference68 articles.

1. Reward Self-Reporting to Deter Corruption: An Experiment on Mitigating Collusive Bribery;Abbink;Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization,2017

2. Targeting the Poor: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia;Alatas;American Economic Review,2012

3. Blowing the Whistle;Apesteguia;Economic Theory,2007

4. Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially;Ariely;American Economic Review,2009

5. Large Stakes and Big Mistakes;Ariely;The Review of Economic Studies,2009

Cited by 2 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Self-signaling in voting;Journal of Public Economics;2024-03

2. Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and ICE Reporting Interest: Evidence from a Large-Scale Study of Web Search Data;British Journal of Political Science;2024-01-25

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3