No Gifts Returned: Surprise Bonuses Reduce Productivity in a Natural Field Experiment

The authors thank Oriana Bandiera, Alexander W. Cappelen, John List, Axel Ockenfels, Till Requate, Ulrich Schmidt, Bertil Tungodden, and participants at the Bogotá Experimental and Behavioral Economics Seminar (BEBES) in Bogota, the 2021 Brown Bag seminar at Kiel University, the 2021 FAIR Workshop at Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), the Special Economic Science Association (ESA) Meeting 2022 in Buenos Aires, the 2022 Symposium on Economic Experiments in Developing Countries in Bogota, and the 2023 Petralia Workshop for valuable comments; Suelen Castiblanco, Laura Jiménez, and Daniel Reyes for excellent research assistance; Fundación Universitaria Konrad Lorenz and Universidad Nacional for hosting our field experiments; and the editor, associate editor, and three anonymous reviewers for insightful comments that significantly improved this paper.