The Effect of Economic Incentives on Worker Absenteeism: An Empirical Study Using Swedish Micro Data

Per Johansson and Mårten Palme

No 4, SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics

Abstract: The effect of economic incentives on absenteeism in Sweden is examined. Based on a utility funcion, frequently used in labour supply studies, absenteeism is modelled as an individual day-to-day decision. Implications of compensating wage differentials and efficiency wage hypotheses are discussed. Two data sets are used: survey data from 1981 and an annual panel 1981-1984. The dependent variable is the number of days absent per year for each individual, i.e. the outcomes of the day-to -day decision are aggregated over the time period of one year. Theory consistent models allowing for state dependence or unobserved heterogeneity are derived. Binomial, overdispersed binomial, mixture distribution and Markov chain models are estimated using maximum likelihood and least squares techniques. The results suggest that changes in the compensation level of the sickness insurance and changes in the unemployment rate could explain about 72 per cent of changes in work absence rate 10 years later.

Keywords: Count data; unobserved heterogeneity; sickness insurance; mixture distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 1994-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:hhs:hastef:0004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics The Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Helena Lundin ().