Abstract IRBs can disallow high incentives they deem coercive. A vignette study on MTurk concerning participation in medical trials shows that a substantial minority of subjects concurs. They think high incentives cause more regret, and that more people would be better off without the opportunity to participate. We model observers as judging the ethicality of incentives by partially using their own utility. The model predicts that payments are repugnant only to the extent that they affect the participation decision, and more so for larger transactions. Incentivizing poorer participants is more repugnant, and in-kind incentives are less repugnant than monetary incentives.

Citation Ambuehl, Sandro, Muriel Niederle, and Alvin E. Roth. 2015. "More Money, More Problems? Can High Pay Be Coercive and Repugnant?" American Economic Review , 105 (5): 357-60 . DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20151034 Choose Format: BibTeX EndNote Refer/BibIX RIS Tab-Delimited