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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Uwe Jirjahn; Jens Mohrenweiser |
| Abstract: | Since the emergence of personnel economics, economists have been increasingly aware that the management practices used by firms are an important determinant of productivity. However, it is an open question of whether the impact of management practices on the productivity of firms depends on workplace health promotion activities (alternatively called workplace wellness programs). Using a widely recognized management index developed by Bloom and Van Reenen (2007), this study provides evidence that workplace health promotion moderates the link between management practices and productivity. Our panel data estimates show that the positive impact of management practices on productivity is stronger if a firm engages in workplace health promotion. This finding fits the notion that workplace health promotion mitigates adverse side effects of management practices on employees' health. However, our estimates also provide evidence of a negative direct influence of workplace promotion on productivity. The positive moderating influence of workplace health promotion only dominates the negative direct influence if a firm uses Bloom and Van Reenen's management practices (targets, monitoring and incentives) at a high intensity. |
| Keywords: | Targets, Monitoring, Incentives, Employee Health, Workplace Wellness Programs, Firm Performance |
| JEL: | I10 J24 J28 J81 M50 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:202505 |
| By: | Mitchell Hoffman (University of Toronto); Christopher Stanton (Harvard Business Schoo) |
| Abstract: | This chapter surveys recent advances in personnel economics. We discuss new research on incentives and compensation; hiring practices; the influence of managers and peers; and time use, technology, and training. Two main themes emerge from this survey. First, we illustrate the interplay between these topics and productivity differences between people and work units. We discuss evidence showing substantial and persistent productivity variation among workers in the same roles, and we examine the extent to which personnel economics research can explain this variation. Second, personnel economics has benefited from exploration – the willingness to use new data and methods to shed light on existing questions and raise new ones. Since the last handbook chapter, personnel economics has evolved from focusing primarily on compensation and incentives to embracing a broader research agenda that examines various HR practices and their impact on worker and firm outcomes. As many personnel studies use data from individual firms, we discuss external validity and provide concrete guidance on improving discussions of generalizability from specific contexts. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, hiring, managers, peer effects, time use, technology at work, training |
| JEL: | M50 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2521 |
| By: | Balbuzanov, Ivan (Department of Economics, University of Melbourne); Gars, Jared (Food and Resource Economics Department, University of Florida); Stalinski, Mateusz (University of Warwick and CAGE); Tjernström, Emilia (Macquarie University) |
| Abstract: | Digital platforms increasingly compensate content creators based on engagement metrics, yet the effects of these incentives remain poorly understood. We conducted a field experiment with a Kenyan news outlet to study how high-intensity performance incentives affect content production, quality, and journalist well-being in digital media. We randomly assigned writers to either pay-per-click (PPC) or piece-rate contracts. The PPC contract tripled per-article pageviews and increased daily pageviews by 107%, but reduced the number of published articles by 74%. While PPC writers earned more per article, their overall earnings fell, lowering the firm’s wage bill and increasing profits. However, these gains came at a cost: PPC writers shifted content production away from local news and towards attention-grabbing political stories. PPC writers also used less positive language in both headlines and article bodies. Our results show that engagement-based pay boosts reader traffic but caution that this may come at the cost of compromised coverage diversity, local news provision, and journalist well-being. |
| Keywords: | performance pay, labor productivity, media engagement, field experiment JEL Classification: C93, J24, J33, L82, M52 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:763 |
| By: | Andreas Ferrara; Christian Dippel; Stephan Heblich |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new evidence on the critical role of lower-level organizational leaders. Unlike top managers, frontline leaders are essential for implementing organizational strategies by maintaining team cohesion when shirking is profitable for workers. We study this in the context of the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, using data on 2.2 million soldiers and tracking captains and their 100-soldier companies at weekly frequency throughout the conflict. We estimate leader fixed effects during non-combat weeks to measure leadership quality in a leader value-added framework. We validate this measure by showing that captains were not assigned based on prior unit performance or observable pre-war characteristics. High-quality leaders earned more after the war, but not before, and were more frequently recognized as good leaders in their postwar biographies. Daily event-study estimates around major battles show that better captains significantly reduced desertions in combat. Exploiting quasi-random leader turnover, we find evidence that this effect is causal. Using digitized battle maps, we rule out risk aversion as a mechanism and find instead that better leaders had higher mortality rates, consistent with a leading-by-example explanation. We also document modest learning-by-doing effects. These findings highlight the often-overlooked importance of frontline leadership, where direct supervision and interpersonal influence are strongest. |
| JEL: | D9 J24 M12 N21 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34057 |
| By: | David Deming (Harvard University); Mikko Silliman (Aalto University) |
| Abstract: | This paper synthesizes the economics literature on skills and human capital, with a particular focus on higher-order capacities like social and decision-making skills. We review the empirical evidence on returns to human capital from both a micro and macro perspective, as well as the evidence on returns to human capital investment over the life-cycle. We highlight two key limitations of human capital theory as currently implemented. First, prior work mostly assumes that human capital is one-dimensional and can be measured by education or test scores alone. Second, human capital is typically modeled as augmenting the marginal product of labor with workers being treated as factors of production, just like physical capital. We argue for a new approach that treats workers as agents who decide how to allocate their labor over job tasks. Traditional cognitive skills make workers more productive in any task, while higher-order skills govern workers’ choices of which tasks to perform and whether to work alone or in a team. We illustrate the value of this approach with stylized models that incorporate teamwork and decision-making skills and generate predictions about how returns to skills vary across contexts. |
| Keywords: | education, skills, human capital, labor market returns |
| JEL: | I26 J2 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2520 |
| By: | Jean-Victor Alipour (LMU Munich, ifo Institute) |
| Abstract: | I study how the rise in working from home (WFH) affects the gender division of paid and unpaid labor (caregiving, domestic tasks). Identification uses differences in individuals' exposure to the Covid-induced WFH shock, measured by the WFH feasibility of their job in 2019. Using panel data from the German SOEP, I estimate 2SLS models that instrument realized WFH in 2022 with WFH feasibility. Results show that WFH reduces paid hours and increases domestic work and leisure (including sleep) among women. Men's time use remains largely unchanged, partly because WFH induces moves toward larger, more distant homes, offsetting commuting time savings. Within-couple analyses confirm that the Big Shift to WFH intensifies gender gaps in paid and unpaid work, particularly caregiving. I find that gender norms, bargaining power, and childcare demands interact with WFH in ways that reinforce the unequal division of labor. |
| Keywords: | work from home; time use; unpaid work; division of labor; gender norms; bargaining power; |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–08–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:542 |