Tobias Regner
May 2014, Games and Economic Behavior
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825614000189
May 2014, Games and Economic Behavior
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825614000189
The author analyzes pricing, effort and tipping decisions at the online service “Google Answers” where users set a price for a question ex ante and can additionally tip the researcher who provides the answer ex post. Usually a positive wage-effort correlation can be found in similar settings, which can be explained by either reciprocity or reputation incentive. The field data provides evidence for both explanations.
Reciprocity:
Reciprocity:
- A substantial amount of single users tip and the tendency to tip is positively correlated with effort.
- The users have three typical types: myopic, strategic and reciprocal and the decision of tipping has significant gap among the three.
- The tendency to tip increases with the frequency of use.
- The tip rate of frequent users in their last question is higher than the tip rate of single users.
- Effort choices depend on past behavior of the user.