Abstract

In this study, we contribute to a longstanding research agenda on the distinctions between the public and private sectors by examining whether work effort differs between public and private settings, and by testing the ways that sector-specific incentives can address such differences. We extend existing research by developing an advanced psychomotor vigilance task that examines multi-dimensional performance (speed and accuracy) in a laboratory experiment. Drawing from a population that is similar along many dimensions, subjects are recruited into public and private settings on the basis of their motivation (majors they have chosen to study and the types of compensation they receive). Using a two-by-two factorial design of public (public job motivated and non-monetary motivated) and private (monetary-motivated) settings, with and without incentives, our findings indicate that public and private settings differ in performance and response to incentives. Methodologically, we show how the choices that experimental subjects make can be exploited for modeling sectoral differences in a more naturalistic way than with a short-term prime, while preserving the advantages of a controlled laboratory experiment.

摘要

在这项研究中，我们通过检查公共场所和私人场所之间的工作努力是否不同，并测试特定行业的激励措施可以解决此类差异的方式，为有关公共部门和私营部门之间的区别的长期研究议程做出了贡献。我们通过开发高级的心理运动警惕任务来扩展现有研究，该任务在实验室实验中检查多维性能（速度和准确性）。从许多方面都相似的人群中吸取经验，他们会根据自己的动机（他们选择学习的专业和所获得的报酬类型）被招募到公共和私人场所。使用公共（公共事业为动机和非金钱为动机）和私人（金钱为动机）设置的两乘二乘设计，有或没有激励措施，我们的研究结果表明，公共场所和私人场所在绩效和对激励措施的反应方面存在差异。从方法上讲，我们展示了如何利用实验对象做出的选择来模拟部门差异，而不是使用短期素数来模拟部门差异，同时保留受控实验室实验的优势。