The presence of monitoring institutions affects quality and effort of leaders. We investigate the effect of intensified monitoring on the ability and effort of leaders for a sample of forest user groups in Ethiopia, and find experimental and non-experimental evidence of an important trade-off: monitoring increases leaders' effort but lowers their quality in terms of education and experience. This effort–ability trade-off only occurs in the presence of alternative income opportunities (affecting the opportunity cost of time) and only among a subsample of leaders with low prosocial motivation. For our context, we document that the net effect of monitoring on economic outcomes is positive.

监督机构的存在会影响领导者的素质和努力。我们以埃塞俄比亚森林用户群体为样本，研究了强化监控对领导者能力和努力的影响，并找到了重要权衡的实验和非实验证据：监控增加了领导者的努力，但降低了他们的质量的教育和经验。这种努力与能力的权衡仅发生在存在替代收入机会（影响时间的机会成本）的情况下，并且仅发生在亲社会动机较低的领导者子样本中。就我们的背景而言，我们记录了监测对经济成果的净影响是积极的。