Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production | Zendy

Daniel P. Gross | Zendy

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Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production

Author(s) -

Daniel P. Gross

Publication year - 2019

Publication title -

the review of economics and statistics

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 8.999

H-Index - 165

eISSN - 1530-9142

pISSN - 0034-6535

DOI - 10.1162/rest_a_00831

Subject(s) - creativity , competition (biology) , originality , incentive , procurement , production (economics) , tweaking , yield (engineering) , industrial organization , economics , business , marketing , psychology , microeconomics , engineering , social psychology , ecology , materials science , metallurgy , electrical engineering , biology

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 the implementation of competitive procurement mechanisms for innovation.

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