Research Seminar

April 11 at 4.40 pm, room 3211 (Shabolovka st., 26)
Speaker: Kosmas Marinakis (ICEF & Faculty of Economics HSE)

April 11 at 4.40 pm, room 3211 International College of Economics and Finance will hold the Research Seminar.
Speaker: Kosmas Marinakis (ICEF & Faculty of Economics HSE)
Theme: «Incentives, Effort and Peer Effects: A Field Experiment»
Venue: Shabolovka str. 26, building 3, room 3211

Abstract: The paper contrasts a relative performance evaluation method to an absolute performance evaluation method within an experimental environment. The experiment compares students' performance under the two alternative grading methods in two separate college classes. The baseline results indicate that the traditional absolute method provides better incentives to students than an ex ante announced curve. Moreover, the data surprisingly show that higher power incentive schemes, through relative performance evaluation, may consistently result in lower effort levels by the students. A possible reason is the existence of strong peer effects amongst students. A theoretical model consistent with this claim is proposed. The paper introduces an innovative treatment for the data by weighting the observations according to the item discrimination index.

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