TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Butschek, Sebastian
AU  - Amor, Roberto González
AU  - Kampkötter, Patrick
AU  - Sliwka, Dirk
        TI  - Paying Gig Workers – Evidence from a Field Experiment
        PY  - 2019/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 12667
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp12667
        AB  - We study the performance effects of payment schemes for freelancers offering services on an online platform in an RCT. Under the initial scheme, the firm pays workers a pure sales commission. The intervention reduces the commission rate and adds a fixed payment per processed order to insure workers against earnings risk. Our experiment tests predictions from a formal model on labor supply and performance for individuals with different degrees of risk aversion and intrinsic motivation for the task. The treatment did not affect labor supply and even though the commission rate was reduced by 50% we find no sizeable loss in sales per order. However, there is strong evidence for heterogeneous treatment effects. The treatment reduced performance for less intrinsically motivated workers. For more intrinsically motivated workers, however, we observe the opposite pattern as performance increased even though commission rates were reduced. 
        KW  - incentives
KW  - risk aversion
KW  - intrinsic motivation
KW  - sales compensation
KW  - multitasking
KW  - field experiment
KW  - gig economy
KW  - on demand economy
KW  - platform economy
        ER  -