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Nicola Lacetera

University of Toronto, Canada

IZA World of Labor is a great initiative to help state-of-the-art research in applied economics to reach a broad audience of individuals, organizations, and policy circles. It is not always easy for academics to transmit their insights, because they are complex and methodological details matter a lot, for example. But the format of these articles is making communication easier and, as such, more productive. I am happy to be part of this initiative

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Associate Professor of Management, University of Toronto—Mississauga

Research interest

Motivations for altruistic behavior, ethical constraints to markets, industrial and innovation economics.

Website

https://sites.google.com/site/nicolacetera/

Past positions

Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research; Faculty Fellow, Canadian Centre for Health Economics; Faculty Lead, I-CUBE business accelerator, Institute for Management and Innovation, University of Toronto—Mississauga

Qualifications

PhD, MIT Sloan School, 2006

Selected publications

  • “Sacred values? The effect of information on attitudes toward payments for human organs.” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 105:5 (2015): 361–65 (with J. Elias and M. Macis).

  • “Would you buy a Honda made in the U.S.? The effect of production location on manufacturing quality.” Review of Economics and Statistics 97:4 (2015): 855–876 (with J. Sydnor).

  • “Economic rewards to motivate blood donations.” Science 340:6135 (2013): 927–28 (with M. Macis and R. Slonim).

  • “Heuristic thinking and limited attention in the car market.” American Economic Review 102:5 (2012): 2206–2236 (with D. Pope and J. Sydnor).

  • “Incentives and problem uncertainty in innovation contests: An empirical analysis.” Management Science 57:5 (2011): 843–863 (with K. Boudreau and K. Lakhani).

article(s)

  • Incentives for prosocial activities

    Economic incentives can motivate prosocial behavior, but may shift attention away from valuable altruistic activities

    Nicola Lacetera, February 2016
    Early studies often found that offering economic incentives for undertaking prosocial and intrinsically motivated activities can crowd out motivation to perform these activities. More recent work highlights nuanced and important features related to whether crowding out (or substitution) is likely to occur. In many cases, incentives succeed in encouraging more prosocial behavior and are also cost-effective. However, although the substitution of external incentives for intrinsic motivation may not be a concern in many contexts, the substitution of one prosocial activity for another or shifts in activities over time or location may warrant further attention.
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