Pro-social motivation, effort and the call to public service

Banuri, Sheheryar and Keefer, Philip (2016) Pro-social motivation, effort and the call to public service. European Economic Review, 83. pp. 139-164. ISSN 0014-2921

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Abstract

We investigate the interaction of pro-social motivation and wages in pro-social organizations with a novel subject pool, 1700 students destined for the private and public sectors in Indonesia, using a measure of pro-social motivation that exactly matches the mission of the organization. Three novel conclusions emerge. Consistent with a common, but untested, assumption in the theoretical literature, workers with greater pro-social motivation exert higher real effort. However, high pay attracts less pro-socially motivated individuals. Furthermore, we also test whether a real world pro-social organization (the Indonesian Ministry of Finance) attracts pro-socially motivated workers. We find that prospective entrants into the Indonesian Ministry of Finance exhibit higher levels of pro-social motivation than a comparable sample of general workers.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: public sector reform,civil service,intrinsic motivation,extrinsic motivation,performance
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Environment, Resources and Conflict
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural and Experimental Development Economics
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 18 Feb 2016 17:00
Last Modified: 12 Jun 2023 08:32
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/57194
DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.10.011

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