Incentivizing Autonomous Workers by Basil Williams

Join us for another event in the Microeconomics Research Seminar Series, Spring Term 2024.

Basil Williams, from the Department of Finance at Imperial College Business School, will present their research on Incentivizing Autonomous Workers.

Abstract

Workers in an important category of jobs select tasks autonomously. We study the tradeoff between monetary bonuses and non-monetary prizes as tools for guiding their choices. An optimal incentive scheme prioritizes workers for prizes in return for taking on underserved tasks, and this prioritization increases as incentives power up. Bonuses may additionally be used when incentives are sufficiently high-powered, but the optimal bonus is often non-monotone in the strength of incentives. Our results have important implications for the design of worker reward programs on freelancing platforms such as Uber and Airbnb.

This seminar will be held in the Economics Common Room on Monday 5 February 2024 at 1.30pm. This event is open to all levels of study and is also open to the public.

To register your place and gain access to the webinar, please contact the seminar organisers.

This event is part of the Microeconomics Research Seminar Series.