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IZA Young Labor Economist Award
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The "IZA Prize in Labor Economics", awarded annually since 2002, has become one of the most distinguished international awards in economics. In 2006, IZA has additionally established the "IZA Young Labor Economist Award" to honor an outstanding published paper in labor economics written by young researchers. To qualify for the award, all authors of the paper must be younger than 40 years of age at the time of publication. The prize money of 5,000 Euros is shared between the authors.
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The selection process starts with nominations sent in by IZA Research Fellows. The nominated papers are then be screened by the IZA Program Directors, who propose three papers each. On the basis of these proposals, the prize-winner(s) will be selected.
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"The establishment of this award reflects IZA's strong ambition to support young and aspiring academics. It is meant to provide an additional incentive for this group to conduct high-quality research in labor economics," explained IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann.
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List of previous winners:
YLEA 2006: Enrico Moretti (University of California, Berkeley)
YLEA 2007: Oriana Bandiera (London School of Economics), Iwan Barankay (University of Warwick), Imran Rasul (University College London)
YLEA 2008: Fabian Lange (Yale University)
YLEA 2009: Alexandre Mas (Princeton University)
YLEA 2010: Raj Chetty (Harvard University) |
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Award Winners 2011 |
 | | Altmann | Zimmermann | Wibral |
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At the traditional IZA reception during the Annual Meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA), which took place in Chicago this year, IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann presented the 2011 IZA Young Labor Economist Award to the authors of the article "Gift Exchange and Workers' Fairness Concerns: When Equality Is Unfair" (Journal of the European Economic Association, 2010). Representing the team of authors, which also included Johannes Abeler and Sebastian Kube, Steffen Altmann and Matthias Wibral attended the award ceremony in Chicago.
The award-winning paper shows that a simple request for equal wages may be neither efficient nor fair. The authors analyze the interaction between reciprocity as a contract enforcement device and modes of payment. In the experiment principals employ two agents who put forward effort prior to receiving their wage. In one treatment the principal can determine individual wages for the two agents (after observing their effort); in the other the principal has to pay the same wage to both workers. The results show that efficiency is quite high in both treatments, but considerably higher in the treatment where wages can be targeted individually. The reason is that workers who have provided higher efforts perceive wage equality as unfair. This in turn induces them to lower their effort. In other words, if agents work differently hard, an equal wage is detrimental for reciprocity as a contract enforcement device. This finding has important implications for the complex interaction of modes of payment and contract enforcement in the presence of social norms. |
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