‘Public service motivation’ as an argument for government provision

François, Patrick

doi:10.1016/s0047-2727(00)00075-x

Cited by 457 publications

(397 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…However, there are several closely-related formulations including Delfgaauw and Dur (2008), Francois (2000Francois ( , 2007, Francois and Vlassopoulos (2008), Hagen (2006) and Prendergast (2003Prendergast ( , 2007Prendergast ( , 2008 which develop the idea of the importance of non-pecuniary motivation in organizations, particularly those that provide public services.…”

Section: Benchmark Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prosocial Motivation and Incentives

Besley

Ghatak

2018

Annu. Rev. Econ.

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This paper explores the role of incentives in providing goods and services that have signi…cant social returns not captured in private returns which tend to be in environments where outcomes and performances are not easy to measure, and pro-social motivation plays an important role. We discuss how the presence of pro-motivation among agents involved in the provision of these goods and services changes the design of incentives. The paper also emphasises how heterogeneous pro-social motivation puts a premium on selection of agents in this context. We also discuss alternative theories of pro-social motivation.

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Section: Benchmark Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prosocial Motivation and Incentives

Besley

Ghatak

2018

Annu. Rev. Econ.

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“…Agents who care about the output will have less incentive to shirk in the public sector than in the private sector. As Francois (2001) argues, this is because public sector managers cannot commit in increasing other factors of production to maintain output when an agent shirks effort, whereas private sector managers can, due to the profit maximization motive. 2 Likewise, individuals are more willing to donate labor in the public sector because the public sector can credibly commit not to expropriate labor.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Crowding Out Intrinsic Motivation in the Public Sector

Georgellis

Iossa

Tabvuma

2010

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

251

211

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Employing intrinsically motivated individuals has been proposed as a means of improving public sector performance. In this article, we investigate whether intrinsic motivation affects the sorting of employees between the private and the public sectors, paying particular attention to whether extrinsic rewards crowd out intrinsic motivation. Using British longitudinal data, we find that individuals are attracted to the public sector by the intrinsic rather than the extrinsic rewards that the sector offers. We also find evidence supporting the intrinsic motivation crowding out hypothesis, in that, higher extrinsic rewards reduce the propensity of intrinsically motivated individuals to accept public sector employment. This is, however, only true for two segments of the UK public sector: the higher education sector and the National Health Service. Although our findings inform the literature on public service motivation, they also pose the question whether lower extrinsic rewards could increase the average quality of job matches in the public sector, thus improving performance without the need for high-powered incentives.

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“…Our paper contributes to a recent literature in economics on incentives and workers' motivation in the public sector (Francois, 2000 Prendergast (2007) who studies sorting of purely altruistic agents into a street-level bureaucracy and shows that, generally, both the most and least desired types self-select into bureaucracy. There are four key differences between his paper and ours.…”

Section: Related Literature and Some Stylized Factsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Incentives and the Sorting of Altruistic Agents into Street-Level Bureaucracies

Buurman

Dur

2008

SSRN Journal

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Many street-level bureaucrats (such as caseworkers) have the dual task of helping some clients, while sanctioning others. We develop a model of such a street-level bureaucracy and study the implications of its personnel policy on the self-selection and allocation decisions of agents who differ in altruism towards clients. When bureaucrats are paid flat wages, they do not sanction, and the most altruistic types sort into bureaucracy. Pay-for-performance induces some bureaucrats to sanction, but necessitates an increase in expected wage compensation, which can result in sorting from both the top and bottom of the altruism distribution. We also show how client composition affects sorting and why street-level bureaucrats often experience an overload of clients.

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‘Public service motivation’ as an argument for government provision

Cited by 457 publications

References 29 publications

Prosocial Motivation and Incentives

Prosocial Motivation and Incentives

Crowding Out Intrinsic Motivation in the Public Sector

Incentives and the Sorting of Altruistic Agents into Street-Level Bureaucracies

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