Piecework versus Timework in British Wartime Engineering

Robert A. Hart ()

No 1593, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: The British engineering industry experienced extreme production and employment pressures during the rearmament period that preceded the Second World War and in the early war years. Did it react by placing a greater emphasis on incentive-compatible payment methods? This paper examines the relative employment and wage effects on pieceworkers and timeworkers. Empirical work is based on detailed firm-level payroll data produced by the Engineering Employers Federation covering the period 1935 to 1942. The paper investigates the effects of war on piecework and timework in relation to (a) labour market arguments concerning substitution between payment methods, (b) piece rate/time rate adjustments to changes in product demand, (c) relative changes in employment and hours, and (d) relative changes in hourly and weekly pay.

Keywords: piecework; timework; British engineering; World War II (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J33 N34 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: 2005-05
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp1593.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1593

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().