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Roel van Veldhuizen . Photo

Roel van Veldhuizen

Senior lecturer

Roel van Veldhuizen . Photo

Peers at work : Evidence from the lab

Author

  • Roel Van Veldhuizen
  • Hessel Oosterbeek
  • Joep Sonnemans

Summary, in English

This paper reports the results of a lab experiment designed to study the role of observability for peer effects in the setting of a simple production task. In our experiment, participants in the role of workers engage in a team real-effort task. We vary whether they can observe, or be observed by, one of their co-workers. In contrast to earlier findings from the field, we find no evidence that low-productivity workers perform better when they are observed by high-productivity co-workers. Instead, our results imply that peer effects in our experiment are heterogeneous, with some workers reciprocating a high-productivity co-worker but others taking the opportunity to free ride.

Publishing year

2018-02-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

PLoS ONE

Volume

13

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Topic

  • Economics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1932-6203