IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v142y2016icp18-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Envy in the workplace

Author

Listed:
  • Manna, Ester

Abstract

Envy affects the optimal employment contract offered to employees with different productivity. The employees’ envy towards colleagues distorts the effort exerted by the less productive employees. However, this distortion is mitigated when employees are also envious towards their boss.

Suggested Citation

  • Manna, Ester, 2016. "Envy in the workplace," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 18-21.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:142:y:2016:i:c:p:18-21
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.02.034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176516300635
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.02.034?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Englmaier, Florian & Muehlheusser, Gerd & Roider, Andreas, 2010. "Optimal Incentive Contracts under Moral Hazard When the Agent is Free to Leave," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 329, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    2. David Card & Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2981-3003, October.
    3. Kragl, Jenny & Schmid, Julia, 2009. "The impact of envy on relational employment contracts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 766-779, November.
    4. Englmaier, Florian & Wambach, Achim, 2010. "Optimal incentive contracts under inequity aversion," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 312-328, July.
    5. Ramarao Desiraju & David E. M. Sappington, 2007. "Equity and Adverse Selection," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 285-318, June.
    6. Bartling, Björn & von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2010. "The intensity of incentives in firms and markets: Moral hazard with envious agents," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 598-607, June.
    7. William S. Neilson & Jill Stowe, 2010. "Piece‐Rate Contracts For Other‐Regarding Workers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(3), pages 575-586, July.
    8. Ferdinand A. von Siemens, 2012. "Social Preferences, Sorting, and Competition," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 780-807, September.
    9. Amihai Glazer, 2008. "Optimal Contracts When a Worker Envies His Boss," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 120-137, May.
    10. Ferdinand A. von Siemens, 2011. "Heterogeneous social preferences, screening, and employment contracts," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 499-522, July.
    11. Bewley, Truman F, 1995. "A Depressed Labor Market as Explained by Participants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 250-254, May.
    12. Alan S. Blinder & Don H. Choi, 1990. "A Shred of Evidence on Theories of Wage Stickiness," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(4), pages 1003-1015.
    13. Carl M. Campbell III & Kunal S. Kamlani, 1997. "The Reasons for Wage Rigidity: Evidence from a Survey of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 759-789.
    14. Desiraju, Ramarao & Sappington, David E.M., 2007. "Equity and adverse selection with correlated costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 402-407, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tampieri, A., 2022. "The effects of educational assortative matching on job and marital satisfaction," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Livio, Luca & De Chiara, Alessandro, 2019. "Friends or foes? Optimal incentives for reciprocal agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 245-278.
    3. Barigozzi, Francesca & Manna, Ester, 2020. "Envy in mission-oriented organisations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 395-424.
    4. Distefano, Rosaria, 2022. "Better to be in the same boat: Positional envy in the workplace," MPRA Paper 115396, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barigozzi, Francesca & Manna, Ester, 2020. "Envy in mission-oriented organisations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 395-424.
    2. Bental, Benjamin & Kragl, Jenny, 2021. "Inequality and incentives with societal other-regarding preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1298-1324.
    3. Kragl, Jenny & Bental, Benjamin, 2020. "Other-Regarding Preferences and Incentives in the Societal Context," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224547, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Robert Dur & Jan Tichem, 2012. "Social Relations and Relational Incentives," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 12-054/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Dominik Erharter, 2013. "Screening Experts' Distributional Preferences," Working Papers 2013-27, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    6. Distefano, Rosaria, 2022. "Better to be in the same boat: Positional envy in the workplace," MPRA Paper 115396, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Gürtler, Marc & Gürtler, Oliver, 2014. "The interaction of explicit and implicit contracts: A signaling approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 135-146.
    8. Dominik Erharter, 2012. "Credence goods markets, distributional preferences and the role of institutions," Working Papers 2012-11, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    9. Gürtler, Marc & Gürtler, Oliver, 2012. "Inequality aversion and externalities," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 111-117.
    10. Felix Kölle & Dirk Sliwka & Nannan Zhou, 2016. "Heterogeneity, inequity aversion, and group performance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(2), pages 263-286, February.
    11. Kemal Saygili & Serkan Kucuksenel, 2019. "Other-regarding preferences in organizational hierarchies," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 201-219, April.
    12. Bartling, Björn & von Siemens, Ferdinand A., 2010. "The intensity of incentives in firms and markets: Moral hazard with envious agents," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 598-607, June.
    13. Bierbrauer, Felix & Netzer, Nick, 2016. "Mechanism design and intentions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 557-603.
    14. Contreras Oscar F. & Giorgio Zanarone, 2018. "Managing Social Comparison Costs in Organizations," Working Papers 2018-25, Banco de México.
    15. Bartling, Björn, 2011. "Relative performance or team evaluation? Optimal contracts for other-regarding agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 183-193, August.
    16. Livio, Luca & De Chiara, Alessandro, 2019. "Friends or foes? Optimal incentives for reciprocal agents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 245-278.
    17. Kragl, Jenny & Gogova, Martina, 2013. "Wage Bargaining when Workers Have Fairness Concerns," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79790, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Goerke, Laszlo & Neugart, Michael, 2017. "Social comparisons in oligopsony," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 196-209.
    19. Gill, David & Stone, Rebecca, 2015. "Desert and inequity aversion in teams," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 42-54.
    20. Brice Corgnet & Brian Gunia & Roberto Hernán González, 2021. "Harnessing the power of social incentives to curb shirking in teams," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 139-167, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adverse selection; Envy;

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:142:y:2016:i:c:p:18-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.