@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp7477,
            	author={Danilov, Anastasia and Sliwka, Dirk},
            	title={Can Contracts Signal Social Norms? Experimental Evidence},
            	year={2013},
	month={Jun},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={7477},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/publications/dp7477},
	abstract={We investigate whether incentive schemes signal social norms and thus affect behavior beyond their direct economic consequences. A principal-agent experiment is studied in which prior to contract choice principals are informed about past actions of other agents and thus have more information about "norms of behavior". Compared to a setting with uninformed principals agents exert nearly 50% higher efforts under a fixed wage contract when an informed principal had chosen this contract. Apparently the informed principal's choice signals a norm not to exploit the trust which leads to more trustworthy behavior. This mechanism's robustness is explored in further experiments.},
	keywords={experiments;signaling;incentives;contracts;social norms},
            }