CERGAS Seminar "The Allocation of Incentives in Multi-Layered Organizations: Evidence from a Community Health Program in Sierra Leone."

Does the allocation of incentives across the hierarchy of an organization matter for its performance? In an experiment with a large public-health organization, we find that healthcare provision is highly affected by how incentives are allocated between frontline workers and their supervisors. Sharing incentives equally between these two layers raises health visits by 61% compared to unilateral allocations, and uniquely improve health service provision and health outcomes. We provide reduced form and structural evidence that effort complementarities and contractual frictions drive these results, and explore the implications for the optimal design of incentive policies in multi-layered organizations.

Speaker:

Erika Deserranno is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Bocconi University. She is a research affiliate at BREAD, CEPR, J-PAL, IGC, IPA, BAFFI FINAFRICA and a faculty affiliate at IGIER, LEAP, GPRL. Her research is at the intersection of development, personnel, and organizational economics. She studies how to design incentive structures to best select, motivate and retain workers in public-sector organizations.

Link zoom:

https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/97121815436?pwd=mFltrdl205Xc1zaemyymIc7HLkK0vN.1

Meeting ID:

971 2181 5436

Passcode:

292126

Lunch at the end of the meeting: for those willing to participate in person, click here before the 3rd of December.