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Rank as an Incentive

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  • Zeckhauser, Richard Jay
  • Tran, Anh

Abstract

Money is the prime incentive in economic models. Recent evidence makes it clear that people are also greatly concerned about how their incomes compare with those of others, suggesting that rank may be a strong motivator as well. Three experiments in Vietnam assessed whether students in real-world learning environments were concerned with their performance rankings. The results showed that concern with rank, even when rankings were not publicly revealed, strongly motivated performance on academic tests. Moreover, rank was able to outweigh money as a motivator.

Suggested Citation

  • Zeckhauser, Richard Jay & Tran, Anh, 2009. "Rank as an Incentive," Scholarly Articles 4415904, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:hksfac:4415904
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Haimanti Bhattacharya & Subhasish Dugar, 2013. "Contests for Ranks: Experimental Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 621-638, January.
    2. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González & Stephen Rassenti, 2011. "Real Effort, Real Leisure and Real-time Supervision: Incentives and Peer Pressure in Virtual Organizations," Working Papers 11-05, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    3. Jordi Blanes i Vidal & Mareike Nossol, 2011. "Tournaments Without Prizes: Evidence from Personnel Records," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(10), pages 1721-1736, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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