Hiring Intrinsically Motivated Agents: A Principal's Dilemma
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866911243655184384 |
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| author | Leal, Andrew |
| author_facet | Leal, Andrew |
| contents | Employers are concerned not only with a prospective worker's ability, but also their propensity to avoid shirking. This paper proposes a new experimental framework to study how Principals trade-off measures of ability and prosocial behavior when ranking Agents for independent jobs. Subjects participate in a simulated, incentivized job market. In an initial session, subjects are Workers and generate a database of signals and job results. Managers in subsequent sessions observe the signals of Worker behavior and ability and job details before a rank-and-value task, ranking and reporting a value for each Worker for two distinct jobs. Results highlight Managers' preference for ability over prosocial behavior on average, especially for Managers in STEM fields. There is evidence of homophily: the relative value of prosocial behavior is higher for highly prosocial Managers, compensating for ability or even surpassing it in value. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_27625 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Hiring Intrinsically Motivated Agents: A Principal's Dilemma Leal, Andrew General Economics Economics Employers are concerned not only with a prospective worker's ability, but also their propensity to avoid shirking. This paper proposes a new experimental framework to study how Principals trade-off measures of ability and prosocial behavior when ranking Agents for independent jobs. Subjects participate in a simulated, incentivized job market. In an initial session, subjects are Workers and generate a database of signals and job results. Managers in subsequent sessions observe the signals of Worker behavior and ability and job details before a rank-and-value task, ranking and reporting a value for each Worker for two distinct jobs. Results highlight Managers' preference for ability over prosocial behavior on average, especially for Managers in STEM fields. There is evidence of homophily: the relative value of prosocial behavior is higher for highly prosocial Managers, compensating for ability or even surpassing it in value. |
| title | Hiring Intrinsically Motivated Agents: A Principal's Dilemma |
| topic | General Economics Economics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27625 |