IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2238.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Constraints on the Choice of Work Hours: Agency vs. Specific-Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Shulamit Kahn
  • Kevin Lang

Abstract

Most models of implicit lifetime contracts imply that at any particular point in time, workers' wages and value of marginal product (VMP) will diverge. As a result, the contract will have to specify hours as well as wages, since firms will desire to prevent workers from working more when the wage is greater than VMP and from working less when the wage is less than VMP. this divergence, combined with the fact that in efficient contracts, the hours are set so that VMP equals the marginal value of leisure, implies that workers will face binding hours constraints. We show that the two major models of lifetime contracts, the agency model and the firm-specific capital model, make opposite predictions regarding the relation between work hours constraints and job tenure. We test these predictions. Our results indicate that neither model of efficient long-term contracts explains the observed pattern of hours constraints. Therefore, we briefly consider other explanations.

Suggested Citation

  • Shulamit Kahn & Kevin Lang, 1987. "Constraints on the Choice of Work Hours: Agency vs. Specific-Capital," NBER Working Papers 2238, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2238
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2238.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John C. Ham, 1982. "Estimation of a Labour Supply Model with Censoring Due to Unemployment and Underemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 335-354.
    2. Lang, Kevin, 1989. "Why was there mandatory retirement?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 127-136, June.
    3. Hall, S.G. & Henry, S.G.B., 1987. "Wage Models," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 119, pages 70-75, February.
    4. Dickens, William T & Lundberg, Shelly J, 1993. "Hours Restrictions and Labor Supply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(1), pages 169-192, February.
    5. Poirier, Dale J. & Ruud, Paul A., 1981. "On the appropriateness of endogenous switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 249-256, June.
    6. Dickens, William T & Lang, Kevin, 1985. "A Test of Dual Labor Market Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 792-805, September.
    7. Parsons, Donald O, 1972. "Specific Human Capital: An Application to Quit Rates and Layoff Rates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1120-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    8. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    9. Polinsky, Mitchell & Shavell, Steven, 1979. "The Optimal Tradeoff between the Probability and Magnitude of Fines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 880-891, December.
    10. Lazear, Edward P, 1981. "Agency, Earnings Profiles, Productivity, and Hours Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 606-620, September.
    11. Joseph G. Altonji & Christina H. Paxson, 1985. "Hours-Wage Tradeoffs and Job Mobility," Working Papers 579, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    12. Kuhn, Peter, 1986. "Wages, Effort, and Incentive Compatibility in Life-Cycle Employment Contracts," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(1), pages 28-49, January.
    13. Hall, Robert E, 1982. "The Importance of Lifetime Jobs in the U.S. Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 716-724, September.
    14. Kahn, Shulamit, 1987. "Occupational Safety and Workers Preferences: Is There a Marginal Worker?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(2), pages 262-268, May.
    15. Moffitt, Robert, 1984. "The Estimation of a Joint Wage-Hours Labor Supply Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 550-566, October.
    16. Martin Neil Baily, 1974. "Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 37-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steven Stern & Petra Todd, 2000. "A Test Of Lazear’S Mandatory Retirement Model," Virginia Economics Online Papers 391, University of Virginia, Department of Economics.
    2. Yi-Ping Tseng & Mark Wooden, 2005. "Preferred vs Actual Working Hours in Couple Households," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2005n07, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    3. Joseph G. Altonji & Christina H. Paxson, 1992. "Labor Supply, Hours Constraints, and Job Mobility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(2), pages 256-278.
    4. Paxson, Christina H & Sicherman, Nachum, 1996. "The Dynamics of Dual Job Holding and Job Mobility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 357-393, July.
    5. David Bell & Steffen Otterbach & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2012. "Work Hours Constraints and Health," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 105-106, pages 35-54.
    6. Drolet, Marie & Morissette, Rene, 1997. "Travailler plus? Travailler moins? Que preferent les travailleurs canadiens?," Direction des études analytiques : documents de recherche 1997104f, Statistics Canada, Direction des études analytiques.
    7. Joseph G. Altonji & Emiko Usui, 2007. "Work Hours, Wages, and Vacation Leave," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 60(3), pages 408-428, April.
    8. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A., 2005. "Union Strategy and Optimal Income Taxation," IZA Discussion Papers 1545, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Rebitzer, James B & Taylor, Lowell J, 1995. "Do Labor Markets Provide Enough Short-Hour Jobs? An Analysis of Work Hours and Work Incentives," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(2), pages 257-273, April.
    10. Drolet, Marie & Morissette, Rene, 1997. "Working More? Working Less? What Do Canadian Workers Prefer?," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 1997104e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    3. Richard Blundell & Mike Brewer & Marco Francesconi, 2008. "Job Changes and Hours Changes: Understanding the Path of Labor Supply Adjustment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 421-453, July.
    4. Männasoo, Kadri, 2022. "Working hours and gender wage differentials: Evidence from the American Working Conditions Survey," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    5. Robert Dur & Heiner Schmittdiel, 2019. "Paid to Quit," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 387-406, December.
    6. John C. Ham & Kevin T. Reilly, 2013. "Implicit Contracts, Life Cycle Labor Supply, And Intertemporal Substitution," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1133-1158, November.
    7. Christian Calmès, 2003. "Poignée de main invisible et persistance des cycles économiques : une revue de la littérature," Staff Working Papers 03-40, Bank of Canada.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Dale T. Mortensen, 1978. "Specific Capital, Bargaining, and Labor Turnover," Discussion Papers 320, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    10. Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2013. "Credit within the Firm," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(1), pages 211-247.
    11. Carstensen, Vivian, 1999. "Beschäftigungssicherung durch Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-228, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    12. Kahn, Shulamit & Lang, Kevin, 1991. "The Effect of Hours Constraints on Labor Supply Estimates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(4), pages 605-611, November.
    13. Christian Etter, 1986. "Versicherungsaspekte des Arbeitsverhältnisses: Der Einfluß impliziter Arbeitsverträge auf Löhne und Beschäftigung," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 122(III), pages 405-424, September.
    14. Richard Rogerson, 2011. "Individual and Aggregate Labor Supply with Coordinated Working Times," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 7-37, August.
    15. Calmès, Christian, 2003. "La poignée de main invisible et la persistance des cycles d’affaires : un survol," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 79(4), pages 563-581, Décembre.
    16. John C. Ham & Kevin T. Reilly, 2013. "Implicit Contracts, Life Cycle Labor Supply, And Intertemporal Substitution," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54, pages 1133-1158, November.
    17. Michael Waldman, 1984. "Job Assignments, Signalling, and Efficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(2), pages 255-267, Summer.
    18. van Soest, A.H.O., 1990. "Essays on micro-econometric models of consumer demand and the labour market," Other publications TiSEM be045d62-a73d-4d7c-a591-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Rebitzer, James B & Taylor, Lowell J, 1995. "Do Labor Markets Provide Enough Short-Hour Jobs? An Analysis of Work Hours and Work Incentives," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(2), pages 257-273, April.
    21. Kandel, Eugene & Pearson, Neil D., 2001. "Flexibility versus Commitment in Personnel Management," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 515-556, December.
    22. Rosen, Sherwin, 1983. "Unemployment and insurance," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 5-49, January.
    23. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1001-1035 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. André Zylberberg, 1994. "Effort et contrats : quelques enseignements concernant le marché du travail," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 113(2), pages 1-20.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2238. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.