Bonus incentives and team effort levels: Evidence from the “Field”*

This study explores the effect of bonus incentive mechanisms with a focus on how such a scheme influences aggregate production levels of teams of workers, specifically. We identify this using data from a highly competitive setting in professional sport, which involves a unique tournament design rule in an elite European rugby competition. The modelling results demonstrate qualified evidence that introducing bonuses to encourage teams to score via the most-difficult, highest-reward mode, incentivizes teams to increase effort to earn the bonus, and without reducing production after the bonus is achieved.