IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc15/112905.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Not Working at Work: Loafing, Unemployment and Labor Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Burda, Michael Christopher
  • Genadek, Katie
  • Hamermesh, Daniel

Abstract

Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2003-12, we estimate time spent by workers in non-work while on the job. Non-work time is substantial and co-varies positively with the local unemployment rate. While the fraction of workers who spend some time in non-work varies pro-cyclically, the average time spent by workers in non-work conditional on any positive non-work varies countercyclically. These results are consistent with a model in which heterogeneous workers are paid efficiency wages to refrain from loafing on the job. That model also predicts relationships of the incidence and conditional amounts of non-work with wage rates and unemployment benefits that are observed in links of the ATUS to data characterizing states unemployment insurance schemes.

Suggested Citation

  • Burda, Michael Christopher & Genadek, Katie & Hamermesh, Daniel, 2015. "Not Working at Work: Loafing, Unemployment and Labor Productivity," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112905, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc15:112905
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/112905/1/VfS_2015_pid_825.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jordi Galí & Thijs van Rens, 2021. "The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity [Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 302-326.
    2. Fay, Jon A & Medoff, James L, 1985. "Labor and Output over the Business Cycle: Some Direct Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 638-655, September.
    3. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw & Christopher Stanton, 2016. "Making Do with Less: Working Harder during Recessions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 333-360.
    4. Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2016. "Should Unemployment Insurance Vary with the Unemployment Rate? Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1092-1124.
    5. Bowles, Samuel, 1985. "The Production Process in a Competitive Economy: Walrasian, Neo-Hobbesian, and Marxian Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 16-36, March.
    6. Solow, Robert M., 1979. "Another possible source of wage stickiness," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 79-82.
    7. Harry J. Holzer, 1986. "Reservation Wages and Their Labor Market Effects for Black and White Male Youth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(2), pages 157-177.
    8. Jeff E. Biddle, 2014. "Retrospectives: The Cyclical Behavior of Labor Productivity and the Emergence of the Labor Hoarding Concept," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 197-212, Spring.
    9. Michael C. Burda & Jennifer Hunt, 2011. "What Explains the German Labor Market Miracle in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 42(1 (Spring), pages 273-335.
    10. John Pencavel, 2013. "The Productivity Of Working Hours," Discussion Papers 13-006, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    11. Michael C. Burda & Daniel S. Hamermesh & Jay Stewart, 2013. "Cyclical Variation in Labor Hours and Productivity Using the ATUS," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 99-104, May.
    12. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    13. Cragg, John G, 1971. "Some Statistical Models for Limited Dependent Variables with Application to the Demand for Durable Goods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(5), pages 829-844, September.
    14. Robert J. Gordon, 1979. "The "End-of-Expansion" Phenomenon in Short-Run Productivity Behavior," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(2), pages 447-462.
    15. Juster, F Thomas & Stafford, Frank P, 1991. "The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 471-522, June.
    16. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    17. Calvo, Guillermo, 1979. "Quasi-Walrasian Theories of Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 102-107, May.
    18. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    19. Marcus Hagedorn & Iourii Manovskii, 2011. "Productivity And The Labor Market: Comovement Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(3), pages 603-619, August.
    20. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2013. "Time Use during the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1664-1696, August.
    21. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1993. "Labor Demand and the Source of Adjustment Costs," NBER Working Papers 4394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Harley Frazis & Jay Stewart, 2005. "Data Watch: The American Time Use Survey," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 221-232, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Not Working at Work: Loafing, Unemployment and Labor Productivity
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2016-02-19 01:04:52
    2. Not Working At Work: Loafing, Unemployment and Labor Productivity By: Burda, Michael C ; Genadek, Katie R. ; Hamermesh, Daniel S.
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2015-07-29 23:05:51

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ethan Ilzetzki & Saverio Simonelli, 2017. "Measuring Productivity Dispersion: Lessons From Counting One-Hundred Million Ballots," CSEF Working Papers 483, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    2. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Katie R. Genadek & Michael C. Burda, 2021. "Racial/Ethnic Differences in Non-Work at Work," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(2), pages 272-292, March.
    3. Reizer, Balázs, 2022. "Employment and Wage Consequences of Flexible Wage Components," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Burda, Michael & Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Genadek, Katie R., 2017. "Non-Work at Work, Unemployment and Labor Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 12087, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Michael C. Burda, 2018. "Aggregate labor productivity," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 435-435, April.
    6. John G. Fernald & J. Christina Wang, 2016. "Why Has the Cyclicality of Productivity Changed? What Does It Mean?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 465-496, October.
    7. Poeschel, Friedrich, 2018. "Why do employers not pay less than advertised? Directed search and the Diamond paradox," MPRA Paper 87920, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jiajia Wei & Qiyan Wang & Wang Gao, 2022. "How Commuting Time Affects Employees’ Income in China’s Urbanization Process," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-18, November.
    9. Martin, Christopher & Wang, Bingsong, 2020. "Search, shirking and labor market volatility," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    10. Senney, Garrett T. & Dunn, Lucia F., 2019. "The role of work schedules and the macroeconomy on labor effort," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 23-34.
    11. Lucia F. Dunn & Ida A. Mirzaie, 2023. "Gender Differences in Consumer Debt Stress: Impacts on Job Performance, Family Life and Health," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 550-567, September.
    12. Kluge, Jan & Lappoehn, Sarah & Plank, Kerstin, 2020. "The Determinants of Economic Competitiveness," IHS Working Paper Series 24, Institute for Advanced Studies.

    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. Burda, Michael & Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Genadek, Katie R., 2017. "Non-Work at Work, Unemployment and Labor Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 12087, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Michael C. Burda & Katie R. Genadek & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2020. "Unemployment and Effort at Work," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(347), pages 662-681, July.
    3. Maarten Dossche & Andrea Gavazzi & Vivien Lewis, 2023. "Labor Adjustment and Productivity in the OECD," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 111-130, January.
    4. Michael C. Burda & Daniel S. Hamermesh & Jay Stewart, 2013. "Cyclical Variation in Labor Hours and Productivity Using the ATUS," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 99-104, May.
    5. Fahn, Matthias, 2019. "Reciprocity in Dynamic Employment Relationships," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 198, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    6. Ernesto Screpanti, 2000. "Wages, Employment, and Militancy: A Simple Model and Some Empirical Tests," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 171-196, June.
    7. Stadler, Manfred, 1996. "Elemente und Funktionsweise des strukturalistischen Ansatzes zur Erklärung der Arbeitslosigkeit," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 65, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    8. Marco Guerrazzi, 2020. "Efficiency-Wage Competition: What Happens as the Number of Players Increases?," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 6(1), pages 13-35, March.
    9. Sessions, John G., 2008. "Wages, supervision and sharing," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 653-672, November.
    10. John G. Fernald & J. Christina Wang, 2016. "Why Has the Cyclicality of Productivity Changed? What Does It Mean?," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 465-496, October.
    11. J. Barkley Rosser, 2003. "A Nobel Prize for Asymmetric Information: The economic contributions of George Akerlof, Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 3-21.
    12. O'Higgins, Niall, 2001. "Youth unemployment and employment policy: a global perspective," MPRA Paper 23698, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Campbell III, Carl M., 2006. "A model of the determinants of effort," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 215-237, March.
    14. Robert A Hart, 2022. "Labour productivity during the Great Depression and the Great Recession in UK engineering and metal manufacture [The Productivity Puzzle: a Firm-level Investigation into Employment Behaviour and Re," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 431-452.
    15. Vesna Stavrevska, 2011. "The efficiency wages perspective to wage rigidity in the open economy: a survey," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(3), pages 273-299, June.
    16. Kevin Lang & William T. Dickens, 1987. "Neoclassical and Sociological Perspectives on Segmented Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 2127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. William T. Dickens & Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin Lang, 1986. "Are Efficiency Wages Efficient?," NBER Working Papers 1935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Harilaos Mertzanis, 2009. "Efficiency Wages, Inflation And Growth," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 131-151, December.
    19. Guerrazzi, Marco, 2012. "On involuntary unemployment: notes on efficiency-wage competition," MPRA Paper 38140, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Rebitzer, James B., 1995. "Is there a trade-off between supervision and wages? An empirical test of efficiency wage theory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 107-129, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:vfsc15:112905. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.