This paper considers a modified principal-agent environment, where principals can use personalized offers based on agents' reciprocity-related information. With such information, principals can either impose stronger financial incentives or try to “trigger” agents' positive reciprocity by offering a higher fixed rate. Theory suggests that principals who believe in agents' reciprocity would personalize offers so that reciprocal agents increase their effort beyond the self-regarding benchmark. Using a lab experiment, we test the behavior of principals and agents. Our experimental market witnesses significant wage personalization when reciprocity information is available. However, agents' effort levels and principals' payoffs are lower under wage personalization, compared with the sessions where principals cannot personalize offers. Our structural analysis shows that, under wage personalization, agents expect higher fixed wages and reciprocate higher wages less. Information about agents' individual reciprocity is more correlated with the expected wages, rather than the strength of reciprocity toward higher or lower wages. Principals grant higher fixed wages to workers with lower wage expectations, but because principals cannot personalize offers effectively according to the strength of reciprocity, the performance of wage personalization is limited.

本文考虑了一个修改后的委托代理环境，委托人可以根据代理的互惠相关信息使用个性化的报价。有了这些信息，委托人可以施加更强的财务激励，或者通过提供更高的固定利率来“触发”代理人的积极互惠。理论表明，相信代理人互惠的委托人会个性化报价，以便互惠代理人增加他们的努力，超越自私基准。通过实验室实验，我们测试委托人和代理人的行为。当互惠信息可用时，我们的实验市场见证了显着的工资个性化。然而，在工资个性化下，代理人的努力水平和委托人的回报较低，与校长无法个性化报价的会议相比。我们的结构分析表明，在工资个性化下，代理人期望更高的固定工资，而回报更高的工资则更少。关于代理人个人互惠的信息与预期工资更相关，而不是对更高或更低工资的互惠强度。委托人对工资期望较低的工人给予较高的固定工资，但由于委托人无法根据互惠的强度有效地个性化报价，工资个性化的表现有限。而不是提高或降低工资的互惠强度。委托人对工资期望较低的工人给予较高的固定工资，但由于委托人无法根据互惠的强度有效地个性化报价，工资个性化的表现有限。而不是提高或降低工资的互惠强度。委托人对工资期望较低的工人给予较高的固定工资，但由于委托人无法根据互惠的强度有效地个性化报价，工资个性化的表现有限。