Teamwork as a Self-Disciplining Device
| Autor: | Hendrik Hakenes, Matthias Fahn |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Commitment device
Teamwork Knowledge management business.industry Computer science media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Perspective (graphical) Procrastination procrastination hyperbolic discounting self-control problems teamwork relational contracts Hyperbolic discounting Relational contract jel:L22 jel:L23 Risk analysis (engineering) 0502 economics and business Production (economics) 050207 economics Psychology business General Economics Econometrics and Finance 050205 econometrics media_common |
| Zdroj: | American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. 11:1-32 |
| ISSN: | 1945-7685 1945-7669 |
| Popis: | We show that team formation can serve as an implicit commitment device to overcome problems of self-control. In a situation where individuals have present-biased preferences, any effort that is costly today but rewarded at some later point in time is too low from the perspective of an individual’s long-run self. If agents interact repeatedly and can monitor each other, a relational contract involving teamwork can help to improve an agent’s performance. The mutual promise to work harder is credible because the team breaks up after an agent has not kept this promise – which leads to individual (under-) production in the future and reduces an agent’s future utility. This holds even though the standard free-rider problem is present and teamwork renders no technological benefits. Moreover, we show that even if teamwork does render technological benefits, the performance of a team of present-biased agents can actually be better than the performance of a team of time-consistent agents. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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