TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gross, Daniel P
TI  - Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 25057
PY  - 2018
Y2  - September 2018
DO  - 10.3386/w25057
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w25057
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w25057.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daniel P. Gross
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
E-Mail: dgross@hbs.edu
AB  - Though fundamental to innovation and essential to many industries and occupations, individual creativity has received limited attention as an economic behavior and has historically proven difficult to study. This paper studies the incentive effects of competition on individuals' creative production. Using a sample of commercial logo design competitions, and a novel, content-based measure of originality, I find that intensifying competition induces agents to produce original, untested ideas over tweaking their earlier work, but heavy competition drives them to stop investing altogether. The results yield lessons for the management of creative workers and for the implementation of competitive procurement mechanisms for innovation.
ER  -