Gifts as Economic Signals and Social Symbols

Camerer, Colin F.

doi:10.1086/228946

Cited by 297 publications

(216 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…It sends symbolic messages from the giver, which are interpreted by the receiver (Wooten 2000). Gifts can be strategically used as signals of the intention to establish relationship and shorten social distance (Camerer 1988;Otnes and Beltramini 1996;Sahlins 1965). For example, giving home baked cakes and cookies to new neighbors, a widespread custom in US suburbs, is one way to make the newcomers members of the local community.…”

Section: Similarities Between Gifts and Bribesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gift Giving and Corruption

Graycar

Jancsics

2016

International Journal of Public Administration

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When individuals exchange gifts social bonds are strengthened and reciprocity is created. If the gift and the reciprocation both come from private resources it is clearly a gift. If what is reciprocated after a gift is given comes from an organization, or is a government resource rather than from "one's own pocket" then it is most likely a bribe. The key variable is not the value of the gift but the transparency of the transaction. What has occurred is the trading of entrusted authority. This is corruption, and a serious danger to public policy.This study reviews anthropological literature on gift giving, and constructs a typology for the examining the gift/ bribe distinction in public administration. This classification helps to distinguish analytically among different types of gift practice and clarify conceptual ambiguity of the terms gift and bribe.

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Section: Similarities Between Gifts and Bribesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gift Giving and Corruption

Graycar

Jancsics

2016

International Journal of Public Administration

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“…When no cards are created, c (α j ) = 0 for any α j . In the spirit of Camerer (1988), Prendergast and Stole (2001), and Ellingsen and Johannesson (2011), we assume that the costs of creating thank-you cards decrease in the 6 Some authors have stressed the importance of good intentions for reciprocity. The approach taken by Levine (1998) that we adopt here can be seen as a simple way to model intentions.…”

Section: Conditional Altruism Of Employeesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employee Recognition and Performance: A Field Experiment

et al. 2016

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. Non-technical SummaryRecognition is an important source of employee motivation. But how should managers allocate recognition: should they praise all? Or should they recognize only extraordinary performances? This issue has not yet been addressed sufficiently. On the one hand, exclusive recognition might raise the performance of high-performers even further as they feel acknowledged and motivated by the public praise. However, this might come at the cost of discouraging and frustrating the non-recipients. On the other hand, non-recipients might respond positively as they are encouraged to catch up with the high-performers while the latter might rest on their laurels. We tackle this research question by conducting a field experiment which investigates the causal effect of recognition on work performance. We hired more than 300 workers for a three-hour data-entry job. After two hours of work, we randomized the provision of unannounced recognition by handing out a thank-you card, which was personally signed by the head of the research institute. By varying the number of recipients of the thank-you card we were able to study the effect of exclusive recognition. Depending on the treatment, we assigned a thank-you card either to the best one, the best three, or all workers of a work group. We find that recognition significantly increases subsequent performance, and in particular so if recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Recognition to the best three performers in a group yields the largest effect on workers' productivity in comparison with either recognition to all employees or recognition to the best performer. Interestingly, performance increases in response to exclusive recognition are mainly driven by strong positive effects of non-recipients. Conformity preferences are the most likely reason for these responses. Upon learning that one does not belong to the best three performers in a group of eight, non-recipients feel inclined to improve performance so as to adhere to the apparent group norm. In line with this interpretation, we find weaker (but still positive) responses of non-recipients when only the best performer in a group receives recognition as this provides a weaker signal of low relative performance than belonging to the bottom five out of eight workers. However, conformity preferences cannot explain all of our results. In particular, recipients of recognition do not decrease performance, as conformity would suggest, but rather (a...

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“…They cannot be rationalized as efficient prohibitions following the argument above as they do not tax a secular activity. They can be explained as an initiation rite which signals type (Camerer, 1988;Iannaccone, 1992).…”

Section: Efficient Sacrificementioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model

Berman

Laitin

2008

Journal of Public Economics

366

212

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Can rational models, once theological explanations are discredited, explain why certain radical religious rebels are so successful in perpetrating suicide attacks? The fundamental barrier to success turns out not to be recruiting suicide attackers; there is a rational basis for volunteering. Rather, the barrier is the danger of other operatives defecting. A club model, portraying voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods, explains how they weed out potential defectors by requiring sacrifices as signals of commitment. They are thereby able to succeed in risky terrorist attacks. The model has testable implications for tactic choice and damage achieved by clubs and other rebel organizations. Data spanning a half-century on both terrorists and civil war insurgents, much from Middle East sources and Israel/Palestine, reveal that: a) missions organized by radical religious clubs that provide benign local public goods are both more lethal and are more likely to be suicide attacks than missions organized by other terrorist groups with similar aims and theologies; and b) suicide attacks are chosen when targets are "hard," i.e., difficult to destroy. Our results suggest benign tactics to counter radical religious terrorism and insurgency.

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Gifts as Economic Signals and Social Symbols

Cited by 297 publications

References 39 publications

Gift Giving and Corruption

Gift Giving and Corruption

Employee Recognition and Performance: A Field Experiment

Religion, terrorism and public goods: Testing the club model

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