The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy

Francesco Devicienti (francesco.devicienti@unito.it), Elena Grinza and Davide Vannoni

No 433, Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the impact of part-time work on firm productivity. Using a large panel data set of Italian corporations' balance sheets for the period 2000- 2010, we first estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) of each firm for each year. We use different approaches aimed at solving input simultaneity, including a version of Ackerberg et al. [2006]'s control function approach, which accounts for firm fixed effects. We then match the TFP estimates with rich information on the firms' use of part-time work obtained from survey data and estimate the impact of part-time work on TFP at the firm level. We find that an increase of 1 standard deviation in the part- time share reduces TFP by 2.03%. The results suggest that this harmful effect stems from horizontal rather than vertical part-time arrangements. We also find that firms declaring that they use part-time work to accommodate workers' requests suffer the most. Moreover, we show that the so-called 'flexible' and 'elastic' clauses are successful in reducing the negative impact associated with part-time work.

Keywords: Part-time work; Horizontal and vertical part-time contracts; Flexible and elastic clauses; Firm total factor productivity (TFP); Semiparametric estimation methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 L23 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages 42
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-ino and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy (2015)
Working Paper: The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cca:wpaper:433

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