Is "Real" Effort More Real?

Dutcher, E. Glenn and Salmon, Timothy C. and Saral, Krista J. (2015): Is "Real" Effort More Real?

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of studies have researchers opting to use "real" effort designs for laboratory experiments where subjects complete an actual task to exert effort rather than using what is perhaps a more traditional design of stylized effort where subjects simply choose an effort level from a pre-defined set. The commonly argued reason for real effort is that it makes the results more generalizable and field relevant. Some researchers go further and make a distinction between trivial and useful real effort, i.e. whether the task is only relevant for the experiment or if it leads to tangible production for some purpose outside of the experiment, and claim that the useful effort model is even more likely to be generalizable. We present an experiment designed to test whether these three modes of effort, stylized, trivial, and useful, have any impact on behavior in a public goods setting. We find that all three forms of effort lead to identical decision making and then discuss how these results help to inform us about the use of real effort in laboratory experiments.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Real Effort, Stylized Effort, Abstract Effort, Economics Experiments, Public Goods
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; H - Public Economics > H4 - Publicly Provided Goods > H41 - Public Goods

References

Arifovic, J. and J. Ledyard (2012). Individual evolutionary learning, other-regarding pref- erences and the voluntary contributions mechanism. Journal of Public Economics 96, 808-823.

Bortolotti, S., G. Devetag, and A. Ortmann (2009). Exploring the effects of real effort in a weak-link experiment. Working Paper.

Briiggen, A. and M. Strobel (2007). Real effort versus chosen effort in experiments. Economics Letters 96 (2), 232-236.

Buckley, E. and R. Croson (2006). Income and wealth heterogeneity in the voluntary provision of linear public goods. Journal of Public Economics 90 (4), 935-955.

Carpenter, J., A. Liati, and B. Vickery (2010). They come to play supply effects in an economic experiment. Rationality and Society 22 (1), 83-102.

Charness, G. and M. C. Villeval (2009). Cooperation and competition in intergenerational experiments in the field and the laboratory. The American Economic Review 99 (3), 956- 978.

Chaudhuri, A. (2011). Sustaining cooperation in laboratory public goods experiments: A selective survey of the literature. Experimental Economics 14 (1), 47-83.

Cherry, T. L., S. Krol, and J. F. Shogren (2005). The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: Evidence from the lab. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 57 (3), 357-365.

Cooper, D. J. and K. J. Saral (2013). Entrepreneurship and team participation: An experimental study. European Economic Review 59, 126-140.

Corgnet, B., R. Hernan-Gonzalez, and S. Rassenti (2011). Real effort, real leisure and real- time supervision: Incentives and peer pressure in virtual organizations. Working Paper.

Croson, R. T. (2001). Feedback in voluntary contribution mechanisms: An experiment in team production. In M. Isaac (Ed.), Research in Experimental Economics, Volume 8, pp. 85 - 97. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Devetag, G. and A. Ortmann (2007). When and why? a critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory. Experimental Economics 10 (3), 331-344.

Dutcher, E. G. (2012). The effects of telecommuting on productivity: An experimental examination. the role of dull and creative tasks. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 84 (1), 355-363.

Fahr, R. and B. Irlenbusch (2000). Fairness as a constraint on trust in reciprocity: Earned property rights in a reciprocal exchange experiment. Economics Letters 66 (3), 275-282.

Fischbacher, U. (2007). z-Tree: Zurich Toolbox For Readymade Economic Experiments. Experimental Economics 10 (2), 171-178.

Gill, D. and V. Prowse (2011). A novel computerized real effort task based on sliders. Working Paper.

Gneezy, U., M. Niederle, and A. Rustichini (2003). Performance in competitive environ- ments: Gender differences. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (3), 1049-1074.

Gachter, S., L. Huang, and M. Sefton (2015). Combining "real effort" with induced effort costs: The ball-catching task. Working Paper.

Houser, D. and R. Kurzban (2002). Revisiting kindness and confusion in public goods experiments. The American Eonomic Review 92 (4), 1062-1069.

Isaac, M., S. Pevnitskaya, and T. C. Salmon (2010). Do preferences for charitable giving help auctioneers? Experimental Economics 13 (1), 14-44.

Isaac, R. M. and J. M. Walker (1988). Group Size Hypotheses of Public Goods Provision: An Experimental Examination. Quarterly Journal of Economics 103, 179-199.

Isaac, R. M., J. M. Walker, and S. H. Thomas (1984). Divergent evidence on free riding: An experimental examination of possible explanations. Public Choice 43, 113-149.

Johnson, D. and T. C. Salmon (2016). Sabotage vs discouragement: Which dominates post promotion tournament behavior? Southern Economic Journal, forthcoming.

Johnson, N. D. and A. A. Mislin (2011). Trust games: A meta-analysis Journal of Economic Psychology 32, 865-889.

Ku, H. and T. C. Salmon (2012). The incentive effects of inequality: An experimental investigation. Southern Economic Journal 79 (1), 46-70.

Kuhn, P. and G. Charness (2011). Lab labor: What can labor economists learn from the lab? In O. Ashenfelter and D. Card (Eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 4A, pp. 229-330. Amsterdam: North Holland.

Ledyard, J. O. (1995). Public Goods: A Survey of Experimental Research. In J. H. Kagel and A. E. Roth (Eds.), The Handbook of Experimental Economics, pp. 111-194. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Lezzi, E., P. Fleming, and D. J. Zizzo (2015). Does it matter which effort task you use? a comparison of four effort tasks when agents compete for a prize. Working Paper.

McCaffrey, D. F. and R. M. Bell (2002). Bias reduction in standard errors for linear regression with multi-stage samples. Survey Methodology 28 (2), 169-182.

Reuben, E. and A. Riedl (2013). Enforcement of contribution norms in public good games with heterogeneous populations. Games and Economic Behavior 77 (1), 122-137.

Van Dijk, F., J. Sonnemans, and F. Van Winden (2001). Incentive systems in a real effort experiment. European Economic Review 45 (2), 187-214.