The Value of Bosses

Edward Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher T. Stanton

Journal of Labor Economics, 2015, vol. 33, issue 4, 823 - 861

Abstract: How and by how much do supervisors enhance worker productivity? Using a company-based data set on the productivity of technology-based services workers, we estimate supervisor effects and find them to be large. Replacing a boss who is in the lower 10% of boss quality with one who is in the upper 10% of boss quality increases a team's total output by more than adding one worker to a nine-member team would. Workers assigned to better bosses are less likely to leave the firm. A separate normalization implies that the average boss is about 1.75 times as productive as the average worker.

Date: 2015
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Related works:
Working Paper: The Value of Bosses (2014)
Working Paper: The value of bosses (2014)
Working Paper: The Value of Bosses (2012)
Working Paper: The Value of Bosses (2012)
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