Coordinated firm-level work processes and macroeconomic resilience

Moritz Kuhn, Jinfeng Luo, Iourii Manovskii and Xincheng Qiu

Journal of Monetary Economics, 2023, vol. 137, issue C, 107-127

Abstract: The production processes at many firms rely on a highly choreographed and interdependent network of workers performing specialized jobs. We designed and implemented a targeted employer survey to measure the extent of coordination in work processes. We link this firm-level coordination measure to administrative data and find that firms with a more coordinated work process are more productive, pay higher wages, and experience lower worker turnover. Yet, these firms suffer more severe negative consequences from unexpected worker absences and adopt various strategies to mitigate such risk, the reliance on which we document. We also find that more coordinated employers suffer worse consequences of negative aggregate shocks. Finally, we discuss policies that may encourage firms to adopt more productive coordinated work processes by increasing the resilience of coordinated employers to negative idiosyncratic or aggregate shocks.

Keywords: Labor markets; Coordination; Economic resilience; Work process; Covid-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E23 E24 J24 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Coordinated Firm-Level Work Processes and Macroeconomic Resilience (2022)
Working Paper: Coordinated Firm-Level Work Processes and Macroeconomic Resilience (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:moneco:v:137:y:2023:i:c:p:107-127

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2023.05.001

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