TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kolstad, Jonathan T
TI  - Information and Quality when Motivation is Intrinsic: Evidence from Surgeon Report Cards
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18804
PY  - 2013
Y2  - February 2013
DO  - 10.3386/w18804
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18804
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18804.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jonathan T. Kolstad
Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
E-Mail: jkolstad@berkeley.edu
AB  - If profit maximization is the objective of a firm, new information about quality should affect firm behavior only through its effects on market demand. I consider an alternate model in which suppliers are motivated by a desire to perform well in addition to profit. The introduction of quality "report cards" for cardiac surgery in Pennsylvania provides an empirical setting to isolate the relative role of extrinsic and intrinsic incentives in determining surgeon response. Information on performance that was new to surgeons and unrelated to patient demand led to an intrinsic response four times larger than surgeon response to profit incentives.
ER  -