On the incentive effects of monitoring: evidence from the lab and the field
通过实验室和田野实验，研究了监督对努力程度的激励效应，发现监督显著提高努力水平，但不同监督方式间无显著差异，且工资增加不影响努力。
Abstract Several experimental studies have shown that the crowding-out effect of monitoring may outweigh its disciplining effect through intrinsic motivation destruction, thereby reducing effort. However, most of these experiments use numeric effort tasks that subjects may not be intrinsically motivated to complete. This paper aims to analyze the incentive effects of monitoring using a real-effort task for which intrinsic motivation is more likely to exist. We conducted two similar experiments, in the lab in Montreal and in the field in Ouagadougou. In contrast to the lab, subjects in the field are unaware they are taking part in an experiment. The following results are observed both in the lab and in the field. Relative to the baseline treatment, we find that our two monitoring treatments significantly increase effort, in line with agency theory. However, effort levels are not significantly different between the monitoring treatments. Finally, increasing the subjects’ wage is found to have no effect on effort.