Working Hours and Productivity

Marion Collewet and Jan Sauermann

No 10722, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper studies the link between working hours and productivity using daily information on working hours and performance of a sample of call centre agents. We exploit variation in the number of hours worked by the same employee across days and weeks due to central scheduling, enabling us to estimate the effect of working hours on productivity. We find that as the number of hours worked increases, the average handling time for a call increases, meaning that agents become less productive. This result suggests that fatigue can play an important role, even in jobs with mostly part-time workers.

Keywords: working hours; productivity; output; labour demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J23 M12 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff, nep-eur and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2017, 47, 96-106

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Related works:
Journal Article: Working hours and productivity (2017)
Working Paper: Working hours and productivity (2017)
Working Paper: Working Hours and Productivity (2017)
Working Paper: Working hours and productivity (2017)
Working Paper: Working hours and productivity (2017)
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