{"title":"Incentives and Relative Wealth Concerns","authors":"Salvatore Miglietta","doi":"10.1142/S201013921450013X","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"If risk-averse agents prefer to be wealthier both in absolute terms and relative to their peers (relative wealth concerns), then (1) they prefer positive correlation, and (2) they are averse to negative correlation between their payoffs. A laboratory experiment shows that subjects prefer positively correlated payoffs. Subjects interested in relative payoffs display stronger aversion to negatively correlated payoffs. This novel evidence has implications that motivate firms' extensive use of broad-based incentive plans and firms' scarce use of Relative Performance Evaluation (RPE) contracts.","PeriodicalId":45339,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Finance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quarterly Journal of Finance","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S201013921450013X","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
If risk-averse agents prefer to be wealthier both in absolute terms and relative to their peers (relative wealth concerns), then (1) they prefer positive correlation, and (2) they are averse to negative correlation between their payoffs. A laboratory experiment shows that subjects prefer positively correlated payoffs. Subjects interested in relative payoffs display stronger aversion to negatively correlated payoffs. This novel evidence has implications that motivate firms' extensive use of broad-based incentive plans and firms' scarce use of Relative Performance Evaluation (RPE) contracts.
期刊介绍:
The Quarterly Journal of Finance publishes high-quality papers in all areas of finance, including corporate finance, asset pricing, financial econometrics, international finance, macro-finance, behavioral finance, banking and financial intermediation, capital markets, risk management and insurance, derivatives, quantitative finance, corporate governance and compensation, investments and entrepreneurial finance.