Tournaments Without Prizes: Evidence from Personnel Records
利用准实验设计，研究发现仅向计件制工人反馈其相对绩效排名，就能在不增加企业成本的情况下显著且持久地提升生产率，这源于工人对自身相对地位的关注被激活。
We use a quasi-experimental research design to study the effect of giving workers feedback on their relative performance. The setting is a firm in which workers are paid piece rates and where, for exogenous reasons, management begins to reveal to workers their relative position in the distribution of pay and productivity. We find that merely providing this information leads to a large and long-lasting increase in productivity that is costless to the firm. Our findings are consistent with the interpretation that workers' incipient concerns about their relative standing are activated by information about how they are performing relative to others. This paper was accepted by Olav Sorenson, organizations.