Making do with less: working harder during recessions

Edward Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Why did productivity rise during recent recessions? One possibility is that average worker quality increased. A second is that each incumbent worker produced more. The second effect is termed “making do with less.” Using data from 2006 to 2010 on individual worker productivity from a large firm, these effects can be measured and separated. For this firm, most of the gain in productivity during the recession was a result of increased effort. Additionally, the increase in effort is correlated with the increase in the local unemployment rate, presumably reflecting the costs of losing a job.

JEL-codes: J01 J50 N0 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2014-06-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59066/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Making Do with Less: Working Harder during Recessions (2016)
Working Paper: Making Do With Less: Working Harder During Recessions (2014)
Working Paper: Making do with less: working harder during recessions (2014)
Chapter: Making Do With Less: Working Harder during Recessions (2013)
Working Paper: Making Do With Less: Working Harder During Recessions (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:59066

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().