Intrinsic Motivation and Health Care

When do extrinsic and intrinsic motivation conflict? Health care seems like a natural spot to look for – though it may be reasonable to think about this as image motivation having a larger effect than extrinsic motivation.

“Information and Quality When Motivation is Intrinsic: Evidence from Surgeon Report Cards”, by Jonathan Kolstad

“If profit maximization is the objective of a firm, new information about quality should affect firm behavior only through its effects on market demand. I consider an alternate model in which suppliers are motivated by a desire to perform well in addition to profit. The introduction of quality “report cards” for cardiac surgery in Pennsylvania provides an empirical setting to isolate the relative role of extrinsic and intrinsic incentives in determining surgeon response. Information on performance that was new to surgeons and unrelated to patient demand led to an intrinsic response four times larger than surgeon response to profit incentives.”

Paper available from the NBER (gated).

This entry was posted in EC470. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Optionally add an image (JPEG only)