IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v66y1999i2p336-352.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Return to Hours and Workers in U.S. Manufacturing: Evidence on Aggregation Bias

Author

Listed:
  • Ronald DeBeaumont
  • Larry D. Singell

Abstract

Reliance on overtime or part‐time work is contested by organized labor and suggests employers exploit trade‐offs between workers and hours. Worker‐hour models predict return to hours and workers' estimates are crucial in evaluating the trade‐off between them. This paper uses data that vary by industry to test and reject a common production structure across industries used in prior work; this aggregation is shown to yield an upward bias in return‐to‐hours estimates. Contrary to prior evidence, the industry‐specific return‐to‐hour estimates are lower than return‐to‐worker estimates and are generally less than one, suggesting that trade‐offs between workers and hours may be cost effective.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronald DeBeaumont & Larry D. Singell, 1999. "The Return to Hours and Workers in U.S. Manufacturing: Evidence on Aggregation Bias," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(2), pages 336-352, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:66:y:1999:i:2:p:336-352
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.1999.tb00250.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.1999.tb00250.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.1999.tb00250.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fay, Jon A & Medoff, James L, 1985. "Labor and Output over the Business Cycle: Some Direct Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 638-655, September.
    2. M. S. Feldstein, 1967. "Specification of the Labour Input in the Aggregate Production Function," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 34(4), pages 375-386.
    3. Shulamit B. Kahn & Kevin Lang, 1995. "The Causes of Hours Constraints: Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(4a), pages 914-928, November.
    4. Whitley, J D & Wilson, R A, 1986. "The Impact on Employment of a Reduction in the Length of the Working Week," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 10(1), pages 43-59, March.
    5. Hart, Robert A. & McGregor, Peter G., 1988. "The returns to labour services in West German manufacturing industry," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 947-963, April.
    6. Leslie, Derek, 1991. "Modelling Hours of Work in a Labour Services Function," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 38(1), pages 19-31, February.
    7. Trejo, Stephen J, 1991. "The Effects of Overtime Pay Regulation on Worker Compensation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 719-740, September.
    8. Blackburn, McKinley L & Neumark, David, 1993. "Omitted-Ability Bias and the Increase in the Return to Schooling," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 521-544, July.
    9. Trejo, Stephen J, 1993. "Overtime Pay, Overtime Hours, and Labor Unions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(2), pages 253-278, April.
    10. Olivier Marchand & Daniel Rault & Etienne Turpin, 1983. "Des 40 heures aux 39 heures : processus et réactions des entreprises," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 154(1), pages 3-15.
    11. Roger Craine, 1973. "On the Service Flow from Labour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(1), pages 39-46.
    12. Leslie, Derek G & Wise, John, 1980. "The Productivity of Hours in U.K. Manufacturing and Production Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(357), pages 74-84, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edoardo Beretta & Aurelio F. Bariviera & Marco Desogus & Costanza Naguib & Sergio Rossi, 2024. "Productivity and Keynes’s 15-Hour Work Week Prediction for 2030: An Alternative, Macroeconomic Analysis for the United States," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-30, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marcello Estevao, "undated". "Measurement Error and Time Aggregation: A Closer Look at Estimates of Output-Labor Elasticities," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1996-02, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), revised 04 Dec 2019.
    2. Simon Cueva & Éric Heyer, 1997. "Fonction de production et degrés d'utilisation du capital et du travail : une analyse économétrique," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 131(5), pages 93-111.
    3. Dongyeol Lee & Hyunjoon Lim, 2017. "Multiple Thresholds In The Nexus Between Working Hours And Productivity," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 716-734, October.
    4. Florian Pelgrin & Arnaud Sylvain & Eric Heyer, 2003. "Durées d'utilisation des facteurs et fonction de production : une estimation par la méthode des moments généralisés en système," Working Papers hal-00972839, HAL.
    5. Collewet, Marion & Sauermann, Jan, 2017. "Working hours and productivity," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 96-106.
    6. Florian Pelgrin & Arnaud Sylvain & Eric Heyer, 2004. "Capital operating time and working time in the production function : an evaluation on a panel firms over the period 1989-2001," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00972838, HAL.
    7. Maya Eden, 2021. "Time‐Inseparable Labor Productivity and the Workweek," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 940-965, July.
    8. Giacomo Corneo, 1994. "La réduction du temps de travail dans les modèles de chômage d'équilibre : une revue de la littérature," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 115(4), pages 63-73.
    9. Dongyeol Lee & Hyunjoon Lim, 2014. "Nonlinearity in Nexus between Working Hours and Productivity," Working Papers 2014-24, Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea.
    10. Eden,Maya, 2016. "The week," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7598, The World Bank.
    11. Annemarie Künn-Nelen & Andries de Grip & Didier Fouarge, 2013. "Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(5), pages 1172-1191, October.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2041 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Bhalotra, Sonia R., 1998. "Changes in utilization and productivity in a deregulating economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 391-420.
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2042 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2041 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2042 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2041 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2041 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Cahuc, Pierre & Granier, Pierre, 1994. "Réduction de la durée du travail, chômage et croissance," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 70(4), pages 453-476, décembre.
    20. Voth, Hans-Joachim, 1998. "Time and Work in Eighteenth-Century London," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(1), pages 29-58, March.
    21. John Pencavel, 2013. "The Productivity Of Working Hours," Discussion Papers 13-006, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    22. Sachiko Kuroda & Isamu Yamamoto, 2009. "How are hours worked and wages affected by labor regulations?: The white-collar exemption and 'name-only managers' in Japan," Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Discussion Paper Series 2009-008, Keio/Kyoto Joint Global COE Program.
    23. Kalwig, A.S. & Gregory, M., 2000. "Overtime Hours in Great Britain Over the Period 1975-1999: A panel Data Analysis," Economics Series Working Papers 9927, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    24. King, Stephen P., 1997. "Oligopoly and overtime," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 149-165, June.
    25. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/2042 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2042 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Sonia R Bhalotra, 1998. "Investigating Rationality in Wage-Setting," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 10, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    28. Strobl, Eric & Walsh, Frank, 2007. "Dealing with monopsony power: Employment subsidies vs. minimum wages," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 83-89, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:66:y:1999:i:2:p:336-352. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.