Optimal teleworking agreements vs. yearning for normality when vaccine is on the horizon

Jacek Rothert

Economics Bulletin, 2021, vol. 41, issue 3, 2106-2115

Abstract: During a pandemic, companies may adopt teleworking agreements even if they lower current productivity. If managers (or policymakers) want to project an image of ``return to normality'', completely orthogonal to any economic or health outcomes, the scope of teleworking agreements is lower but constant in a stationary equilibrium. In response to the news about upcoming vaccine, rational managers always increase the scope of teleworking agreements, unless the desire to project the image of ``return to normality'' is sufficiently strong, effectively creating a reopening-smoothing motive. The ``return to normality'' may be premature if managers do not understand Lucas' Critique.

Keywords: Covid-19; teleworking; Lucas' Critique; alternative working arrangements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-09-18
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2021/Volume41/EB-21-V41-I3-P181.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Optimal teleworking agreements vs. yearning for normality when vaccine is on the horizon (2021)
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:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-00742

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().