Incentives

In economics, an incentive is any factor (financial or non financial) that provides a motive for a particular course of action, or counts as a reason for preferring one choice to the alternatives. In business and marketing there are incentive programs including travel and merchandise programs, sales and safety campaigns, sweepstakes, scratch and win cards, and gift certificates. Incentives can be classified according to the different ways in which they motivate agents to take a particular course of action. Incentive structures are notoriously more tricky than they might appear to people who set them up.