Tommaso Reggiani

Teams or Tournaments? A Field Experiment on Cooperation and Competition in Academic Achievement

This paper assesses the effect of two stylized and antithetic non-monetary incentive schemes on students’ effort. We collect data from a field experiment where incentives are exogenously imposed, performance is monitored and individual characteristics are observed. Students are randomly assigned to a tournament scheme that fosters competition between coupled students, a cooperative scheme that promotes information sharing and collaboration between students and a control treatment in which students can neither compete, nor cooperate. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that competition induces higher effort with respect to cooperation and cooperation does not increase effort with respect to the baseline. However, this is true only for men, while women do not seem to react to non-monetary incentives.

Cooperation or Competition? A Field Experiment on Non-monetary Learning Incentives

Abstract We assess the effect of two antithetic non-monetary incentive schemes based on grading rules on students’ effort, using experimental data. We randomly assigned students to a tournament scheme that fosters competition between paired up students, a cooperative scheme that promotes information sharing and collaboration between students and a baseline treatment in which students can neither compete nor cooperate. In line with theoretical predictions, we find that competition induces higher effort with respect to cooperation, whereas cooperation does not increase effort with respect to the baseline treatment. Nonetheless, we find a strong gender effect since this result holds only for men while women do not react to this type of non-monetary incentives.

Gender Effects in Injustice Perceptions: An Experiment on Error Evaluation and Effort Provision

As performances are rarely observable, evaluation errors may occur. We observe how women react to evaluation errors and wrongful reward assessment in organizations. In particular, we focus on severity and leniency errors in the evaluation of performances. Severity errors occur when workers do not receive the reward although they exerted high effort and reached the target. Leniency errors occur when workers are rewarded even when they exerted low effort and did not reach the target. They are both detrimental to motivation and effort provision. Our findings from a laboratory experiment show that, when gender is considered, asymmetric results are shown for men and women. Whereas males drop their contribution more under severity errors rather than leniency errors, female tend to do the opposite. We discuss these results contributing to the literature on organizational justice by investigating the role of gender in the perception of justice within organizations.

Responding to (Un)Reasonable Requests

We consider the notions of static and dynamic reasonableness of requests in a trust game experiment. We vary systematically the experimental norm of what is expected from trustees to return to trustors, both in terms of level of each request and in terms of sequence of the requests. Static reasonableness matters in a self-biased way, in the sense that low requests justify returning less but high requests tend to be ignored. Dynamic reasonableness also matters, in the sense that, if requests keep increasing, trustees return less than if requests of different size are presented in random or decreasing order. Requests never systematically increase trustworthiness, but may decrease it.

Survey on Child Labour Statistics

This paper aims to provide a review on key methodological issues regarding two major international statistical approaches, which characterize the statistics on Child Labour, especially in poor countries. In the first section, we summarises and analyse some key concepts about the international definition on Child Labour. In the second section we analyze the methodology “Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour” (SIMPOC) by International Labour Organization (ILO). In the third section, we describe an alternative methodology promoted by World Bank (WB) identified through the “Living Standard Measurement Survey” (LSMS). In conclusion, in the fourth section, we briefly describe the Italian experience, reporting the major methodological implications emerged during the experimentation of the statistical research project “Children and Work” carried out in Italy by ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics).