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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2017
  5. Personality Traits and Performance Contracts: Evidence from a Field Experiment among Maternity Care Providers in India

Personality Traits and Performance Contracts: Evidence from a Field Experiment among Maternity Care Providers in India

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Abstract

We study how agents respond to performance incentives according to key personality traits (conscientiousness and neuroticism) through a field experiment offering financial incentives for improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes to rural Indian doctors. More conscientious providers performed better--but improved less--under performance incentives. The effect of the performance incentives was also smaller for providers with higher levels of neuroticism. Our results contribute to a growing body of empirical research on heterogeneous responses to incentives and have implications for worker selection.

Citation

Donato, Katherine, Grant Miller, Manoj Mohanan, Yulya Truskinovsky, and Marcos Vera-Hernández. 2017. "Personality Traits and Performance Contracts: Evidence from a Field Experiment among Maternity Care Providers in India." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 506-10. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171105

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • C93 Field Experiments
  • I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
  • I14 Health and Inequality
  • I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
  • J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
  • J16 Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration