An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Labor Economics
Year: 2004
Volume: 22
Issue: 1
Pages: 23-56

Authors (2)

Pascal Courty (University of Victoria) Gerald Marschke (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

2.018 = (α=2.02 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This article studies a particular kind of gaming responses to explicit incentives in a large government organization. The gaming responses we consider occur when agents strategically report their performance outcomes to maximize their awards. An important contribution of this work is to examine whether this behavior diverts resources (e.g., agents' time) from productive activities or whether it simply reflects an accounting phenomenon. We evaluate the efficiency impact of the behavior we identify and find that it has a negative impact on the true goal of the organization.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jlabec:v:22:y:2004:i:1:p:23-56
Journal Field
Labor
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25