IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/1928.html

Clerks

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We study optimal dynamic scheduling of workers to tasks when task completion is privately observed —so that workers can delay the release of finished tasks — and idle time is the only available incentive instrument. We characterize a scheduling rule, and its induced equilibrium, that maximizes expected discounted output. Unless workers are inherently slow, production alternates between efficient phases and delays. Our analysis reveals a trade-off between the quality and the size of the workforce. We also present several extensions, illustrating the versatility of the framework.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Fershtman & Kfir Eliaz & Alexander Frug, 2025. "Clerks," Economics Working Papers 1928, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1928
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1928.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Gavazza & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2007. "The Perils of Transparency in Bureaucracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 300-305, May.
    2. Daniel Bird & Alexander Frug, 2019. "Dynamic Non-monetary Incentives," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 111-150, November.
    3. Decio Coviello & Andrea Ichino & Nicola Persico, 2015. "The Inefficiency Of Worker Time Use," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 906-947, October.
    4. Mor Armony & Guillaume Roels & Hummy Song, 2021. "Pooling Queues with Strategic Servers: The Effects of Customer Ownership," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(1), pages 13-29, January.
    5. Robert L. Bray & Decio Coviello & Andrea Ichino & Nicola Persico, 2016. "Multitasking, Multiarmed Bandits, and the Italian Judiciary," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 18(4), pages 545-558, October.
    6. Yingni Guo, 2016. "Dynamic Delegation of Experimentation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 1969-2008, August.
    7. Tymofiy Mylovanov & Patrick Schmitz, 2008. "Task scheduling and moral hazard," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(2), pages 307-320, November.
    8. Decio Coviello & Andrea Ichino & Nicola Persico, 2014. "Time Allocation and Task Juggling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 609-623, February.
    9. de Clippel, Geoffroy & Eliaz, Kfir & Fershtman, Daniel & Rozen, Kareen, 2021. "On selecting the right agent," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(2), May.
    10. Guo, Yingni & Hörner, Johannes, 2020. "Dynamic Allocation without Money," TSE Working Papers 20-1133, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    11. Ragavendran Gopalakrishnan & Sherwin Doroudi & Amy R. Ward & Adam Wierman, 2016. "Routing and Staffing When Servers Are Strategic," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1033-1050, August.
    12. Jin Li & Niko Matouschek & Michael Powell, 2017. "Power Dynamics in Organizations," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 217-241, February.
    13. Forand, Jean Guillaume & Zapal, Jan, 2020. "Production priorities in dynamic relationships," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Kfir Eliaz & Daniel Fershtman & Alexander Frug, 2025. "Clerks," Working Papers 1535, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Lipnowski, Elliot & Ramos, João, 2020. "Repeated delegation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    3. McClellan, Andrew, 2025. "The dynamics of project standards," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    4. Veronica Rattini, 2023. "Worker autonomy and performance: Evidence from a real‐effort experiment," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 300-327, April.
    5. Baccara, Mariagiovanna & Lee, SangMok & Yariv, Leeat, 2023. "Task allocation and on-the-job training," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. Rantakari, Heikki, 2023. "How to reward honesty?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 129-145.
    7. Chen, Yi, 2022. "Dynamic delegation with a persistent state," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(4), November.
    8. Kaufmann, Marc, 2022. "Projection bias in effort choices," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 368-393.
    9. Chu, Hongli & Sun, Ivan Y. & Wang, Jianxiong, 2025. "Excellent human capital or institution? Evidence from judicial reform of the judge quota system in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(PA).
    10. Antonio Peyrache & Angelo Zago, 2024. "The inefficiency of courts of justice: industry structure, capacity and misallocation," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 217-238, October.
    11. Auerbach, Jan U. & Fonseca, Miguel A., 2020. "Preordered service in contract enforcement," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 130-149.
    12. Gneezy, Uri & Nelidov, Vadim & Offerman, Theo & van de Ven, Jeroen, 2023. "When opportunities backfire: Alternatives reduce perseverance and success in task completion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 304-324.
    13. Daniel Bird & Alexander Frug, 2019. "Dynamic Non-monetary Incentives," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 111-150, November.
    14. Decio Coviello & Andrea Ichino & Nicola Persico, 2019. "Measuring the Gains from Labor Specialization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 403-426.
    15. Solan, Eilon & Zhao, Chang, 2021. "Dynamic monitoring under resource constraints," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 476-491.
    16. V. Rattini, 2016. "Managing the Workload: an Experiment on Individual Decision Making and Performance," Working Papers wp1080, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    17. Alison Andrew & Sarah Cattan & Monica Costa Dias & Christine Farquharson & Lucy Kraftman & Sonya Krutikova & Angus Phimister & Almudena Sevilla, 2022. "The gendered division of paid and domestic work under lockdown," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 325-340, December.
    18. Guo, Yingni & Hörner, Johannes, 2020. "Dynamic Allocation without Money," TSE Working Papers 20-1133, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    19. Florence Kondylis & Mattea Stein, 2023. "The Speed of Justice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(3), pages 596-613, May.
    20. Mitchell Hoffman & Christopher T. Stanton, 2024. "People, Practices, and Productivity: A Review of New Advances in Personnel Economics," NBER Working Papers 32849, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

    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:upf:upfgen:1928. 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 The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask the person in charge to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.upf.edu/en/web/econ/ .

    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.