Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Self Confidence in a Principal Agent Relationship

在一个完美的市场中，雇主将提供工资和奖金方案，为员工提供正确的激励，以完成他们被赋予的任务。但是，如果正如广泛记录的那样，员工对自己的能力系统性地过于自信或信心不足，该怎么办？如果是这样的话，雇主或许能够利用这些偏见。例如，雇主可以向过于自信的员工提供低工资和与出色表现挂钩的非常高的奖金。过于自信的员工会接受低工资，因为他们错误地认为自己很有可能获得高额奖金。为了验证这种预测，PI将进行一项实验，首先评估参与者的自信心，方法是将每个参与者在能力倾向测试中的分数与每个参与者预测的分数进行比较。然后，受试者参加计算机实验室中的模拟就业情况。当参与者在任务中的成功概率由他们的测试分数决定时，以及当他们依赖于随机分配的数字时，通过比较行为来衡量过度自信或自信不足的效果。这种设置使员工的自我评估能力保持不变。这项实验将证实，不同的自信水平是否真的与不同的激励、努力水平和雇主和雇员的总体利润有关。最终，它将为探索自信与性别等人口统计因素之间的联系以及性别差异对工作合同结构的影响奠定基础。

In a perfect market, employers will offer wage and bonus packages that will provide employees with just the right incentives to accomplish tasks they are given. But what if, as has been widely documented, employees are systematically over or under-confident regarding their abilities? If so, employers might be able to take advantage of these biases. For example, employers could offer overconfident employees low wages and very high bonuses tied to outstanding performance. Overconfident employees will accept the low wages because they assume (incorrectly) that they are very likely to get the big bonuses.To test such predictions, the PIs will conduct an experiment in which participants are first assessed in terms of their self-confidence by comparing each participant's score on an aptitude test to the score the each participant predicted he or she would get. Subjects then participate in a simulated employment situation in a computer laboratory. The effect of over- or under-confidence is measured by comparing behavior when participants' probability of success in their task is determined by their test score, and when it depends on a randomly assigned number. This setup holds everything but the employee's self-assessed ability constant. The experiment will confirm if different self-confidence levels are indeed associated with different incentives, effort levels, and overall profits for employers and employees. Ultimately, it will set the stage for exploring the connection between self-confidence and demographic factors like gender and the implications of gender differences for the structure of work contracts.