Anatomy of a Contract Change /

We study a contract change for tea pluckers on an Indian plantation, with a higher government-stipulated baseline wage. Incentive piece rates were lowered or kept unchanged. Yet, in the following month, output increased by 20-80%. This response contradicts the standard model and several variants, is...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
1. Verfasser:
Jayaraman, Rajshri
Körperschaft:
National Bureau of Economic Research
Weitere Verfasser:
Ray, Debraj, de Vericourt, Francis
Format:
Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:
Englisch
Veröffentlicht:
Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.
Zusammenfassung:
We study a contract change for tea pluckers on an Indian plantation, with a higher government-stipulated baseline wage. Incentive piece rates were lowered or kept unchanged. Yet, in the following month, output increased by 20-80%. This response contradicts the standard model and several variants, is only partly explicable by greater supervision, and appears to be "behavioral." But in subsequent months, the increase is comprehensively reversed. Though not an unequivocal indictment of "behavioral" models, these findings suggest that non-standard responses may be ephemeral, and should ideally be tracked over an extended period of time.
Umfang:
1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);
Anmerkungen:
January 2014.
Schlagworte: