Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2rsb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-12T06:15:33.356Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Separating real incentives and accountability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ferdinand M. Vieider*
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilans-University Munich, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 Munich, Germany

Abstract

Accountability—the expectation on the side of the decision maker that she may have to justify her decisions in front of somebody else—has been found by psychologists to strongly influence decision-making processes. The awareness of this issue remains however limited amongst economists, who tend to focus on the motivational effects of financial incentives. Accountability and incentives may provide different motivations for decision makers, and disentangling their effects is thus important for understanding real-world situations in which both are present. Separating accountability and incentives, I find different effects. Accountability is found to reduce preference reversals between frames, for which incentives have no effect. Incentives on the other hand are found to reduce risk seeking for losses, where accountability has no effect. In a choice task between simple and compound events, accountability increases the preference for the normatively superior simple event, while incentives have a weaker effect going in the opposite direction.

Information

Type
Original Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Supplementary material: File

Vieider supplementary material

Vieider supplementary material
Download Vieider supplementary material(File)
File 44.5 KB