Comments on: Hard Facts: Incentives

By: J

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:19:02 +0000

“clerks in stores with more sales were actually less courteous”

I’m not surprised One of the things that has always mystified me about the retail industry is why they ignore basic realities of human behavior and intentionally drive half of their potential customers out the door in the name of customer service. Specifically, is there anybody on this planet who is unaware that unsolicited “assistance” is one of the most corrosively annoying things a man can experience? A store that orders their salespeople to relentlessly harrass male customers with offers of unwanted help is going to suffer; ask Circuit City.

By: The instrumental bias of our peers « Just the Facts

The instrumental bias of our peers « Just the Facts — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 13:14:46 +0000

[...] Hanson quotes Hard Facts in saying that law students were optimistic about their own motives for studying law and [...]

By: Rich Rostrom

Rich Rostrom — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:33:05 +0000

So the majority of law students profess idealistic motives for pursuing that profession, while imputing base motives to their peers.

One wonders which perception is accurate, or honest.

As for executive bonuses: it’s presumed that the executive, in making a decision, always pursues the best interests of the company. That’s his job, bonus or no bonus. Where the bonus comes in is getting him to work harder at getting that decision right (or making more decisions): it’s a reward for extraordinary performance.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:12:47 +0000

I doubt the self-reports are accurate, but I think it’s worth blogging anyway to highlight the disparity between what people say about themselves vs others. Similarly, most people think that they are above-average drivers and that crime is up everywhere except their own neighborhoods.

By: lena

lena — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:24:24 +0000

does this mean that taxing high income earners more will not result decreased motivation to work?

By: billswift

billswift — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:23:47 +0000

People are rarely motivated by relatively small differences in money. But anyone who tells you he is not motivated by money is lying – I have seen almost no one who would stay at their current job without getting paid specifically for it.

By: Paul Hewitt

Paul Hewitt — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:48:48 +0000

May we ask how many pages are in this tome and whether you are going to cut and paste all of them?

These examples are not so much “hard facts” as they are somewhat apparent “truisms”. I liken them to “old wives tales” – there may be some truth to them, but maybe not. Judging by the scant number of comments to these posts, most of your readers feel the same way.

Was there a page on futarchy? (just kidding)!

By: Edward Gaffney

Edward Gaffney — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:40:33 +0000

Why would caring about money be low-status without extra information? Many high-status institutions care a lot about money. Is it more likely that they are wrong about themselves because they see themselves as being more moral rather than higher-status? Why must everything revert to status, even non-identifiable survey information?

By: Greg Conen

Greg Conen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:42:47 +0000

>Individuals believe that others are motivated by money, even as they know that they are much less so.

Are they wrong about others, or about themselves? After all, caring about money would be low status.

By: Adam

Adam — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:16:45 +0000

These are all interesting results but for some of them I’m not sure what conclusions to draw.

Examples: if I own a store, should I make a point to encourage my clerks to be courteous or to hire courteous clerks? Maybe it won’t increase sales, but will it increase profits?

Re forced rankings: the respondents reported all kinds of negative effects, but what to make of that? Maybe their subjective opinion is that this fosters bad feelings, but what evidence is there either way about how forced ranking contribute (or hinder) effectiveness?

Re bonuses: the executives REPORT that the bonuses have no effect on their decisions, but what do they DO? Where is the evidence of how the bonuses affect their behavior? If the claim is that monetary bonuses do not create incentives for behavior, then that is an extraordinary claim that would (imho anyway) require a lot of evidence to back it up.