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The Quality Of Information And Incentives For Effort

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  • OMER MOAV
  • ZVIKA NEEMAN

Abstract

We study the relationship between the precision of information about the performance of an agent in a market, and the incentives this agent has for exerting effort to produce high quality. We show that this relationship can be nonmonotonic. There exists an efficient plausible equilibrium that induces a threshold beyond which any further improvement in the precision of information weakens the agent's incentive to produce high quality. Accordingly, both very accurate and very inaccurate signals about the agent's performance may destroy its incentive to exert effort. A few applications of this result are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Omer Moav & Zvika Neeman, 2010. "The Quality Of Information And Incentives For Effort," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 642-660, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:58:y:2010:i:3:p:642-660
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6451.2010.00428.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Arthur Fishman & Nadav Levy, 2015. "Search Costs and Investment in Quality," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 625-641, December.
    2. Kalyvas, Antonios Nikolaos & Mamatzakis, Emmanuel, 2017. "Do creditor rights and information sharing affect the performance of foreign banks?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-35.
    3. Francisco Alvarez-Cuadrado & Jose Maria Casado & Jose Maria Labeaga, 2016. "Envy and Habits: Panel Data Estimates of Interdependent Preferences," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(4), pages 443-469, August.
    4. Zvika Neeman & Aniko Öry & Jungju Yu, 2019. "The benefit of collective reputation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 50(4), pages 787-821, December.

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