Research Seminar Quantitative MacroeconomicsResponse to Sanction: the Importance of TypePeter Zweifel (Univ. Zürich)
15. November 2016
Peter Zweifel (Univ. Zürich), 12:15 - 13:45, Room 0029 (VMP 5)
Abstract
The private provision of a public good has been an important topic ever since Bergstrom, Blume, and Varian (1986), whose focus is on extrinsic motivation. However, selfdetermination theory in psychology has long emphasized the role of intrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). While Benabou and Tirole (2003) reconcile the two, they neglect the fact that a public good may be produced at the workplace, which raises three issues. First, employers may not be indifferent with regard to this production because they in fact pay for it as long as it is not detected, causing them to threaten sanction. Second, in the presence of information asymmetry, types become important [Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976); Elanain (2007), Prendergast (2007) in the human resources literature]. Third, in case the public good is free access to IT, it takes on a special significance in view of the contribution of IT to productivity and development (Zhen-Wei Qiang and Pitt, 2004). These issues are addressed in a model of behavior distinguishing three types of open source programmers, with evidence from China suggesting that they may respond not only in quantitatively but also qualitatively different ways to a possible sanction.