Recovery from Work and the Productivity of Working Hours

John H. Pencavel ()
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John H. Pencavel: Stanford University

No 10103, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Observations on munition workers are organized to examine the relationship between their output each week, their working hours and days each week, and their working hours and days in adjacent weeks. The hypothesis is that workers need to recover from work and a long working week results in greater fatigue and stress and yet provides insufficient time for recuperation before the next week's work opens. Workers require time off the job to restore their physical, mental, and emotional capacities and, if a long working week provides inadequate time to repair, their subsequent work performance suffers.

Keywords: working hours; output; productivity; recovery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J24 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2016-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eff, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Economica, 2016, 83 (322), 545-563

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