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The slider task: an example of restricted inference on incentive effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2025

Felipe A. Araujo ,
Erin Carbone ,
Lynn Conell-Price ,
Marli W. Dunietz ,
Ania Jaroszewicz ,
Rachel Landsman ,
Diego Lamé ,
Lise Vesterlund ,
Stephanie W. Wang  and
Alistair J. Wilson
Felipe A. Araujo
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Erin Carbone
Affiliation:
GSPIA, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Lynn Conell-Price
Affiliation:
Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
Marli W. Dunietz
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Ania Jaroszewicz
Affiliation:
Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
Rachel Landsman
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Diego Lamé
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Lise Vesterlund*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Stephanie W. Wang
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Alistair J. Wilson
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Real-effort experiments are frequently used when examining a response to incentives. For a real-effort task to be well suited for such an exercise its measurable output must be sufficiently elastic over the incentives considered. The popular slider task in Gill and Prowse (Am Econ Rev 102(1):469–503, 2012) has been characterized as satisfying this requirement, and the task is increasingly used to investigate the response to incentives. However, a between-subject examination of the slider task’s response to incentives has not been conducted. We provide such an examination with three different piece-rate incentives: half a cent, two cents, and eight cents per slider completed. We find only a small increase in performance: despite a 1500 % increase in the incentives, output only increases by 5 %. With such an inelastic response we caution that for typical experimental sample sizes and incentives the slider task is unlikely to demonstrate a meaningful and statistically significant performance response.

Keywords

Real-effortSlider taskIncentives

JEL classification

D01: Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles J30: General C90: General
Type
Original Paper
Information
Journal of the Economic Science Association , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , May 2016 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Economic Science Association 2016

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Footnotes

This paper was written as a joint classroom project among faculty and students for a graduate course in experimental economics at the University of Pittsburgh.

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