More Hours, More Jobs? The Employment Effects of Longer Working Hours

Martyn J. Andrews (), Hans-Dieter Gerner (), Thorsten Schank () and Richard Upward ()
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Martyn J. Andrews: University of Manchester
Hans-Dieter Gerner: Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg

No 6652, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: Increases in standard hours have been a contentious policy issue in Germany. Whilst this might directly lead to a substitution of workers by hours, there may also be a positive employment effect due to reduced costs. Moreover, the response of firms differs between firms which offer overtime and those which do not. For a panel of German plants (2001-2006), we analyse the effect of increased standard hours on employment. Using difference-in-difference methods we find that, consistent with theory, overtime plants showed a significant positive employment response, whilst for standard-time plants there is no difference at all between plants which increased standard hours and those which did not.

Keywords: working time; employment; plant-level data; difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 J23 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eur, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-ltv
Date: 2012-06
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