Making Do With Less: Working Harder During Recessions

Edward Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: Why did productivity rise during recent recessions? One possibility is that average worker quality increased. A second is that each incumbent worker produced more. The second effect is termed "making do with less." Using data from 2006 to 2010 on individual worker productivity from a large firm, these effects can be measured and separated. For this firm, most of the gain in productivity during the recession was a result of increased effort. Additionally, the increase in effort is correlated with the increase in the local unemployment rate, presumably reflecting the costs of losing a job.

Keywords: Recession; productivity; sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D20 E32 L22 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1321.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Making do with less: working harder during recessions (2014)
Working Paper: Making do with less: working harder during recessions (2014)
Chapter: Making Do With Less: Working Harder during Recessions (2013)
Working Paper: Making Do With Less: Working Harder During Recessions (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1321

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