The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity

In this paper, we investigate how social comparison information about referent others (i.e., learning what similar others do, and how they are treated) affects reciprocal relationships. Using three-person gift-exchange games, we study how employees’ reciprocity towards an employer is affected by pay comparison information (what co-workers earn) and effort comparison information (how co-workers perform). We find strong evidence of the effects of effort comparison: employees are more willing to reciprocate by choosing high effort in response to a high wage if they observe others doing so. In our setting, we find somewhat weaker evidence of the effects of pay comparison.