Status and Incentives

Abstract

The paper introduces status as reflecting an agent's claim to recognition in her work. It is a scarce resource: increasing an agent's status requires that another agent's status is decreased. Higher status agents are more willing to exert effort in exchange for money; better-paid agents would exert a higher effort in exchange for an improved status. Results are coherent with actual management practices: (i) egalitarianism is desirable in a static context; (ii) in a long-term work relationship, juniors' compensations are delayed; past performances are recompensed by pay increases along with an improved status within the organization's hierarchy.repeated moral hazard, internal labor markets, social status