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Daniel Fershtman, Kfir Eliaz and Alexander Frug

No 1535, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We study optimal dynamic scheduling of workers to tasks when task completion is privately observed —so that workers can delay the release of finished tasks — and idle time is the only available incentive instrument. We characterize a scheduling rule, and its induced equilibrium, that maximizes expected discounted output. Unless workers are inherently slow, production alternates between efficient phases and delays. Our analysis reveals a trade-off between the quality and the size of the workforce. We also present several extensions, illustrating the versatility of the framework.

Keywords: idle time; moral hazard; multi-server systems; non-monetary incentives; optimal scheduling; strategic servers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 D82 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-lma and nep-mic
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:1535

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