Productivity Improvements in Public Organizations

U of Heidelberg, Economics Working Paper No. 307

33 Pages Posted: 29 Oct 2001

See all articles by Hans Gersbach

Hans Gersbach

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Marten Keil

Heidelberg University - Alfred Weber Institute for Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: September 2001

Abstract

In this paper we examine the possibilities a principal in a public organization has to motivate agents for productivity improvements where standard stick and carrot incentives cannot be used. The principal's only incentive device is a reallocation of budgets and tasks across agents depending on the extent of productivity improvements revealed by each agent. We first show that as long as agents do not collude the principal can use rotation and tournament schemes to eliminate all slack in the organization. Second, to break collusion between agents, the principal must use discriminatory tournament schemes or incentive schemes assigning tasks to agents who do not participate in the productivity improvement exercise.

Keywords: public organizations, incentive schemes, tournament and rotation schemes, collusion

JEL Classification: D82, M12, L31

Suggested Citation

Gersbach, Hans and Keil, Marten, Productivity Improvements in Public Organizations (September 2001). U of Heidelberg, Economics Working Paper No. 307, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=288215 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.288215

Hans Gersbach (Contact Author)

ETH Zurich - CER-ETH -Center of Economic Research ( email )

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Marten Keil

Heidelberg University - Alfred Weber Institute for Economics ( email )

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