Skip Navigation


CESifo Economic Studies Advance Access originally published online on February 8, 2008
CESifo Economic Studies 2008 54(1):22-54; doi:10.1093/cesifo/ifn002
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
54/1/22    most recent
ifn002v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Francois, P.
Right arrow Articles by Vlassopoulos, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Related Collections
Right arrow L31 - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs
Right arrow L33 - Comparison of Public and Private Enterprises; Privatization; Contracting Out
Right arrow J32 - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Private Pensions
Right arrow J45 - Public Sector Labor Markets
Right arrow H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Pro-social Motivation and the Delivery of Social Services

Patrick Francois* and Michael Vlassopoulos{dagger}

*Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, CEPR and CentER, Tilburg. e-mail: francois{at}interchange.ubc.ca
{dagger}Division of Economics, University of Southampton, UK. e-mail: M.Vlassopoulos{at}soton.ac.uk

This article provides an overview highlighting some major themes of the recent literature on the role of pro-social motivation in the provision of social services. We focus on the insights obtained from two alternative ways of modelling pro-social motivation; action-oriented and output-oriented altruism. This literature has implications regarding the design of optimal incentives, the selection of motivated agents and its interaction with monetary rewards, and the optimal organizational form required to exploit such motivations. We also discuss the implications for government provision of social services from the perspective of a parallel literature that emphasizes the non-contractible nature of output, and contrast it with the implications derived from work emphasizing the role of pro-social motivation. (JEL codes: H11, J32, J45, L31, L33)

Key Words: donated labour • intrinsic motivation • power of incentives • provision of social services


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.