TY - JOUR
T1 - Employment Contracts and Stress
T2 - Experimental Evidence
AU - Allan, Julia
AU - Andelic, Nicole
AU - Bender, Keith
AU - Powell, Daniel
AU - Stoffel, Sandro
AU - Theodossiou, Ioannis
N1 - Funding Information:
Notes: Authors are listed in alphabetical order. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Scottish Economic Society on the pilot study and from the ESRC (Grant ES/R01163X/1). We also extend our thanks to Matthew McGinty, Christine Spencer and participants at the 2020 EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conference, 2021 GLO Research Seminars, 2021 SES Conference, 2021 ICBM Conference, the Economics Centre at Curtin University, the Economics Department at St Lawrence University and the Applied Health Psychology Research Workshop and Business School at the University of Aberdeen who provided thoughtful comments on an early draft of the current manuscript. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained from the University of Aberdeen, College of Life Sciences & Medicine Ethics Review Board (CERB/2015/5/1198). The study was pre-registered with the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/sxkb2 ) prior to data collection.
Funding Information:
? Notes: Authors are listed in alphabetical order. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Scottish Economic Society on the pilot study and from the ESRC (Grant ES/R01163X/1). We also extend our thanks to Matthew McGinty, Christine Spencer and participants at the 2020 EALE/SOLE/AASLE World Conference, 2021 GLO Research Seminars, 2021 SES Conference, 2021 ICBM Conference, the Economics Centre at Curtin University, the Economics Department at St Lawrence University and the Applied Health Psychology Research Workshop and Business School at the University of Aberdeen who provided thoughtful comments on an early draft of the current manuscript. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained from the University of Aberdeen, College of Life Sciences & Medicine Ethics Review Board (CERB/2015/5/1198). The study was pre-registered with the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/sxkb2) prior to data collection.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/7/31
Y1 - 2021/7/31
N2 - A growing literature has found a link between performance-related pay (PRP) and poor health, but the causal direction of the relationship is not known. To address this gap, the current paper utilises a crossover experimental design to randomly allocate subjects into a work task paid either by performance or a fixed payment. Stress is measured through self-reporting and salivary cortisol. The study finds that PRP subjects had significantly higher cortisol levels and self-rated stress than those receiving fixed pay, ceteris paribus. By circumventing issues of self-report and self-selection, these results provide novel evidence for the detrimental effect PRP may have on health.
AB - A growing literature has found a link between performance-related pay (PRP) and poor health, but the causal direction of the relationship is not known. To address this gap, the current paper utilises a crossover experimental design to randomly allocate subjects into a work task paid either by performance or a fixed payment. Stress is measured through self-reporting and salivary cortisol. The study finds that PRP subjects had significantly higher cortisol levels and self-rated stress than those receiving fixed pay, ceteris paribus. By circumventing issues of self-report and self-selection, these results provide novel evidence for the detrimental effect PRP may have on health.
KW - perfomance- related pay
KW - stress
KW - experiment
KW - cortisol
U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.04.015
DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.04.015
M3 - Article
VL - 187
SP - 360
EP - 373
JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
SN - 0167-2681
ER -
