IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v137y2023icp270-293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coordination under loss contracts

Author

Listed:
  • Ahrens, Steffen
  • Bitter, Lea
  • Bosch-Rosa, Ciril

Abstract

In this paper we study the effects that loss contracts—prepayments that can be clawed back later—have on group coordination when there is strategic uncertainty. To do so, we investigate the choices made by experimental subjects in a minimum effort game. In control sessions, incentives are formulated as a classic gain contract, while in treatment sessions, incentives are framed as an isomorphic loss contract. Contrary to most results in the loss contract literature, in our setup loss contracts backfire by reducing the minimum effort of groups and worsening the coordination between group members. Such results suggest that the success off loss contracts is context dependent and offer an explanation as to why loss contracts are not implemented more often in the wild.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahrens, Steffen & Bitter, Lea & Bosch-Rosa, Ciril, 2023. "Coordination under loss contracts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 270-293.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:137:y:2023:i:c:p:270-293
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2022.11.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825622001622
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2022.11.010?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan de Quidt, 2018. "Your Loss Is My Gain: A Recruitment Experiment with Framed Incentives," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 522-559.
    2. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    3. Lex Borghans & Bart H. H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 649-658, 04-05.
    4. Stefano DellaVigna & Devin Pope, 2018. "What Motivates Effort? Evidence and Expert Forecasts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 1029-1069.
    5. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    6. Duch, Matthias L. & Grossmann, Max R.P. & Lauer, Thomas, 2020. "z-Tree unleashed: A novel client-integrating architecture for conducting z-Tree experiments over the Internet," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    7. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Kujal, Praveen & Lenkei, Balint, 2019. "Cognitive reflection test: Whom, how, when," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    8. Van Huyck, John B & Battalio, Raymond C & Beil, Richard O, 1990. "Tacit Coordination Games, Strategic Uncertainty, and Coordination Failure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 234-248, March.
    9. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    10. Jonathan Quidt & Francesco Fallucchi & Felix Kölle & Daniele Nosenzo & Simone Quercia, 2017. "Bonus versus penalty: How robust are the effects of contract framing?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 174-182, December.
    11. Roberto A. Weber, 2006. "Managing Growth to Achieve Efficient Coordination in Large Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 114-126, March.
    12. Frank Heinemann & Rosemarie Nagel & Peter Ockenfels, 2009. "Measuring Strategic Uncertainty in Coordination Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 181-221.
    13. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    14. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2016. "Efficient Coordination in Weakest-Link Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 737-767.
    15. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2015. "Framing Of Incentives And Effort Provision," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 917-938, August.
    16. Shane Frederick, 2005. "Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 25-42, Fall.
    17. Tanjim Hossain & John A. List, 2012. "The Behavioralist Visits the Factory: Increasing Productivity Using Simple Framing Manipulations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(12), pages 2151-2167, December.
    18. Roland Fryer & Steven Levitt & John List & Sally Sadoff, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00591, The Field Experiments Website.
    19. George A. Akerlof, 1997. "Social Distance and Social Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1005-1028, September.
    20. Martin Dufwenberg & Uri Gneezy, 2005. "Gender & Coordination," Springer Books, in: Rami Zwick & Amnon Rapoport (ed.), Experimental Business Research, chapter 0, pages 253-262, Springer.
    21. Jared Rubin & Anya Samek & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2018. "Loss aversion and the quantity–quality tradeoff," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 292-315, June.
    22. Lex Borghans & Bart H.H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity," Working Papers 200903, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    23. Charness, Gary & Haruvy, Ernan & Sonsino, Doron, 2007. "Social distance and reciprocity: An Internet experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 88-103, May.
    24. Hong, Fuhai & Hossain, Tanjim & List, John A., 2015. "Framing manipulations in contests: A natural field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 372-382.
    25. Jordi Brandts & David J. Cooper, 2006. "A Change Would Do You Good .... An Experimental Study on How to Overcome Coordination Failure in Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 669-693, June.
    26. Marc Knez & Colin Camerer, 1994. "Creating Expectational Assets in the Laboratory: Coordination in ‘Weakest‐Link’ Games," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(S1), pages 101-119, December.
    27. Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Ponti, Giovanni & Tomás, Josefa & Ubeda, Luis, 2011. "Framing effects in public goods: Prospect Theory and experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 439-447, June.
    28. Gérard P. Cachon & Colin F. Camerer, 1996. "Loss-Avoidance and Forward Induction in Experimental Coordination Games," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 165-194.
    29. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:1:p:99-113 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2015. "Framing Of Incentives And Effort Provision," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 917-938, August.
    31. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    32. Ailin Leng & Lana Friesen & Kenan Kalayci & Priscilla Man, 2018. "A minimum effort coordination game experiment in continuous time," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(3), pages 549-572, September.
    33. Dirk Engelmann & Hans-Theo Normann, 2010. "Maximum effort in the minimum-effort game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(3), pages 249-259, September.
    34. R. Lynn Hannan & Vicky B. Hoffman & Donald V. Moser, 2005. "Bonus versus Penalty: Does Contract Frame Affect Employee Effort?," Springer Books, in: Amnon Rapoport & Rami Zwick (ed.), Experimental Business Research, chapter 0, pages 151-169, Springer.
    35. Di Girolamo, Amalia & Drouvelis, Michalis, 2015. "The role of gender composition and size of the group in a minimum effort game," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 168-170.
    36. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Mylène Lagarde & Duane Blaauw, 2021. "Effects of incentive framing on performance and effort: evidence from a medically framed experiment," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(1), pages 33-48, September.
    2. De Paola, Maria & Gioia, Francesca & Pupo, Valeria, 2020. "Selection and Incentives under Time Pressure: The Importance of Framing," IZA Discussion Papers 13474, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Manja Gärtner & Robert Östling & Sebastian Tebbe, 2023. "Do we all coordinate in the long run?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(1), pages 16-33, June.
    4. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González, 2019. "Revisiting the Trade-off Between Risk and Incentives: The Shocking Effect of Random Shocks?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1096-1114, March.
    5. Fehr, Dietmar, 2017. "Costly communication and learning from failure in organizational coordination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 106-122.
    6. Arno Riedl & Ingrid M. T. Rohde & Martin Strobel, 2016. "Efficient Coordination in Weakest-Link Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 737-767.
    7. Maoliang Ye & Jie Zheng & Plamen Nikolov & Sam Asher, 2020. "One Step at a Time: Does Gradualism Build Coordination?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(1), pages 113-129, January.
    8. Astrid Gamba & Luca Stanca, 2023. "Mis-judging merit: the effects of adjudication errors in contests," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(3), pages 550-587, July.
    9. Paul J. Ferraro & J. Dustin Tracy, 2022. "A reassessment of the potential for loss-framed incentive contracts to increase productivity: a meta-analysis and a real-effort experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(5), pages 1441-1466, November.
    10. Jonathan Quidt & Francesco Fallucchi & Felix Kölle & Daniele Nosenzo & Simone Quercia, 2017. "Bonus versus penalty: How robust are the effects of contract framing?," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 174-182, December.
    11. Alejandro Caparrós & Esther Blanco & Philipp Buchenauer & Michael Finus, 2020. "Team Formation in Coordination Games with Fixed Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2004, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    12. Feri, Francesco & Gantner, Anita & Moffatt, Peter G. & Erharter, Dominik, 2022. "Leading to efficient coordination: Individual traits, beliefs and choices in the minimum effort game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 403-427.
    13. Fabrice Le Lec & Astrid Matthey & Ondřej Rydval, 2023. "Punishing the weakest link - Voluntary sanctions and efficient coordination in the minimum effort game," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 95(3), pages 429-456, October.
    14. Giovanna Devetag & Andreas Ortmann, 2007. "When and why? A critical survey on coordination failure in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 331-344, September.
    15. Feldhaus, Christoph & Rockenbach, Bettina & Zeppenfeld, Christopher, 2020. "Inequality in minimum-effort coordination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 341-370.
    16. Timko, Krisztina, 2017. "Men and Women Are Equally Effective Leaders," MPRA Paper 77022, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. David Smerdon & Theo Offerman & Uri Gneezy, 2020. "‘Everybody’s doing it’: on the persistence of bad social norms," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 392-420, June.
    18. Fabrice Le Lec & Astrid Matthey & Ondrej Rydval, 2012. "Punishment Fosters Efficiency in the Minimum Effort Coordination Game," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-030, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    19. Fehr, Dietmar, 2011. "The persistance of "bad" precedents and the need for communication: A coordination experiment," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2011-039, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    20. Dietmar Fehr, 2011. "The Persistence of "Bad" Precedents and the Need for Communication: A Coordination Experiment," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2011-039, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Strategic uncertainty; Loss aversion; Coordination; Contract design; Framing; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    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:gamebe:v:137:y:2023:i:c:p:270-293. 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/inca/622836 .

    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.