Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; Honours versus Money: The Economics of Awards; Copyright; Preface; Contents; List of Figures; List of Tables; 1: Why Awards?; Motivation by Money and by Honours; Benefits from Honours; Awards can Contribute to Happiness; Awards Raise Productivity and Contributions to Public Goods; Collecting Value; Advantages of Honours; Other Motivators; Conclusions; Related Literature; 2: Awards are Popular; State Orders; Arts, Media, and Fashion; Sports; Religion; Voluntary and Humanitarian Sector; Academia; Business; Innovation Prizes; Ironic and Mock Prizes; Ig Nobel Prize; Golden Raspberry Awards Further Dishonourable and Mock AwardsThe Academic Study of Honours; Conclusions; Related Literature; 3: Types of Awards; Individuals or Groups Receiving an Award; Confirmatory and Discretionary Awards; Confirmatory Awards; Discretionary Awards; Differentiating the Effects of Different Award Characteristics; A Vignette Survey Experiment; Factors Determining the Behaviour of Award Recipients; Type of reward to accompany the award; Amount of cash or value of gift; Degree of publicity; The maximum number of recipients; Example of a Particular Award Vignette; Willingness to Share Research Findings ResultsDemand for Awards; Conclusions; Related Literature; 4: Awards and Academic Performance; Awards Honouring or Inducing Best Behaviour?; Motivations Behind the Bestowal of Academic Honours; Two Prestigious Awards for Academic Economists; Identifying Causality with a Matching Approach; John Bates Clark Medallists; Data Employed; Construction of the Synthetic Control Groups; Publications; Citations; Fellowship of the Econometric Society; Publications; Citations; The Matching Method; The Fields Medal in Mathematics; Conclusions; Related Literature; 5: Awards in the Voluntary Sector Reasons for Using AwardsTypes of Awards in the Third Sector; Voluntary Contributions to Wikipedia; Declining Retention Rates; A Large-Scale Field Experiment on Purely Symbolic Awards; Experimental Design; Results; General Activity; Treatment Effect Persistence; Accounting for the Treatment Effects; Awards Support Voluntary Engagement; Conclusions; Related Literature; 6: Awards in Firms; Business and Other Private-Sector Awards; Value Creation through Awards; Motivational Crowding-In; Role Models; Capturing the Value Created by Awards; Using Awards to Foster Employee Retention The Risk of Value DestructionUnintended Motivational Effects; Gaming the System; Social Comparison Costs; Sustained Value Creation Must Consider Complementarities; Nature of Production; Firm Scope and Scale; Conclusions; Related Literature; 7: Honours as Signals; The Different Signalling Functions of Confirmatory and Discretionary Awards; Signals Emitted by the Award Giver; Managers Signalling their Own Quality; Signalling the Intent to Establish a Bond of Loyalty; Signalling Beliefs about Employees and Tasks; Signals Emitted by (Possible) Recipients; Employees Signalling their Own Quality

Honours fulfil one of the most fundamental desires of human beings, namely, to be recognised and held in esteem by others. There are thousands of awards in all areas of society: the state, arts and media, sports, religion, the voluntary sector, academia, and business. Awards are well visible, can raise the recipients' intrinsic motivation and creativity, and establish a bond of loyalty to the giver. They have distinct advantages over money and other rewards. Presenting empirical evidence using modern statistical techniques, this book argues that awards can significantly raise performance in different contexts even if they are purely symbolic, recommending how this can be used in practice.

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