IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/202101.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Returns to Teamwork and Professional Networks: Evidence from Economic Research

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Devereux

Abstract

Teamwork is growing in developed economies, and workers in teams are increasingly compensated according to team output. Because parsing individual contributions to teamwork is difficult, I focus on scholarly economics research, which lists contributing authors. I use turnover to identify team value-added: an author's average output quality conditional on the value-added of coauthors. Linking the universe of scholarly economic research output to publicly available payroll records, I study the effect of value-added on salaries. Strikingly, coauthors' value-added has a greater effect on salaries than does own value-added, suggesting the value of professional networks dominates the effect of discounting contributions based on coauthor quality. Moreover, authors are compensated for the solo-authored output of their coauthors - which can not be reasonably attributed to them - demonstrating the value of professional networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Devereux, 2021. "Returns to Teamwork and Professional Networks: Evidence from Economic Research," Working Papers 202101, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:202101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/11867
    File Function: First version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorenzo Ductor & Sanjeev Goyal & Anja Prummer, 2023. "Gender and Collaboration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1366-1378, November.
    2. Ingo E. Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "The value of a peer," ECON - Working Papers 342, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Heather Sarsons & Klarita Gërxhani & Ernesto Reuben & Arthur Schram, 2021. "Gender Differences in Recognition for Group Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(1), pages 101-147.
    4. Peter Arcidiacono & Josh Kinsler & Joseph Price, 2017. "Productivity Spillovers in Team Production: Evidence from Professional Basketball," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 191-225.
    5. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2593-2632, September.
    6. Glenn Ellison, 2013. "How Does the Market Use Citation Data? The Hirsch Index in Economics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 63-90, July.
    7. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    8. Mike Helal & Michael Coelli, 2016. "How Principals Affect Schools," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2016n18, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    9. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw & Christopher T. Stanton, 2015. "The Value of Bosses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 823-861.
    10. Alan Benson & Danielle Li & Kelly Shue, 2019. "Promotions and the Peter Principle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2085-2134.
    11. David J. Deming, 2017. "The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(4), pages 1593-1640.
    12. Ong, David & Chan, Ho Fai & Torgler, Benno & Yang, Yu (Alan), 2018. "Collaboration incentives: Endogenous selection into single and coauthorships by surname initial in economics and management," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 41-57.
    13. Montgomery, James D, 1991. "Social Networks and Labor-Market Outcomes: Toward an Economic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1407-1418, December.
    14. David Card & Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2981-3003, October.
    15. Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2009. "Insider Econometrics: Empirical Studies of How Management Matters," NBER Working Papers 15618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Alexandre Mas, 2017. "Does Transparency Lead to Pay Compression?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(5), pages 1683-1721.
    17. Lena Hensvik & Oskar Nordström Skans, 2016. "Social Networks, Employee Selection, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 825-867.
    18. Lorenzo Ductor & Sanjeev Goyal & Anja Prummer, 2018. "Gender & Collaboration," Working Papers 856, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    19. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 2012. "Reputation And Earnings: The Roles Of Quality And Quantity In Academe," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 1-16, January.
    20. Anindya Sen & Hideki Ariizumi & Natasha DeSousa, 2014. "Evaluating the Relationship between Pay and Research Productivity: Panel Data Evidence from Ontario Universities," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 40(1), pages 1-14, March.
    21. John M. Abowd & Robert H. Creecy & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Computing Person and Firm Effects Using Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    22. Devereux, Kevin, 2018. "Identifying the value of teamwork: Application to professional tennis," CLEF Working Paper Series 14, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    23. repec:wly:soecon:v:82:2:y:2015:p:430-452 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Mohammad Ahmadpoor & Benjamin F. Jones, 2019. "Decoding team and individual impact in science and invention," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(28), pages 13885-13890, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics Profession > Publishing in Economics > Teams

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. David J. Deming, 2022. "Four Facts about Human Capital," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 75-102, Summer.

    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. Devereux, Kevin, 2018. "Identifying the value of teamwork: Application to professional tennis," CLEF Working Paper Series 14, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    2. Achyuta Adhvaryu & Vittorio Bassi & Anant Nyshadham & Jorge A. Tamayo, 2020. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm," NBER Working Papers 27006, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Ben Weidmann & David J. Deming, 2020. "Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Group Performance," NBER Working Papers 27071, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Koffi, Marlene, 2021. "Innovative ideas and gender inequality," CLEF Working Paper Series 35, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    5. Di Addario, Sabrina & Kline, Patrick & Saggio, Raffaele & Sølvsten, Mikkel, 2023. "It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at: Hiring origins, firm heterogeneity, and wages," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 340-374.
    6. Ian M. Schmutte, 2015. "Job Referral Networks and the Determination of Earnings in Local Labor Markets," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-32.
    7. Battisti, Michele, 2017. "High wage workers and high wage peers," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 47-63.
    8. Ajay Bhaskarabhatla & Luis Cabral & Deepak Hegde & Thomas Peeters, 2021. "Are Inventors or Firms the Engines of Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3899-3920, June.
    9. Stéphane Bonhomme, 2021. "Selection on Welfare Gains: Experimental Evidence from Electricity Plan Choice," Working Papers 2021-15, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    10. Huitfeldt, Ingrid & Kostøl, Andreas R. & Nimczik, Jan & Weber, Andrea, 2023. "Internal labor markets: A worker flow approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 661-688.
    11. Brändle, Tobias & Grunau, Philipp & Haylock, Michael & Kampkötter, Patrick, 2020. "Recruitment strategies and match quality - New evidence from representative linked employer-employee data," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 134, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    12. Deserranno, Erika & Leon-Ciliotta, Gianmarco, 2022. "Promotions and Productivity: The Role of Meritocracy and Pay Progression in the Public Sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 15837, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Eliason, Marcus & Hensvik, Lena & Kramarz, Francis & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2023. "Social connections and the sorting of workers to firms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 468-506.
    14. Mario Macis & Fabiano Schivardi, 2016. "Exports and Wages: Rent Sharing, Workforce Composition, or Returns to Skills?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 945-978.
    15. Christina Håkanson & Erik Lindqvist & Jonas Vlachos, 2021. "Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 512-538.
    16. Bonhomme, Stéphane & Denis, Angela, 2024. "Estimating heterogeneous effects: Applications to labor economics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    17. Antoine Deeb, 2021. "A Framework for Using Value-Added in Regressions," Papers 2109.01741, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    18. Stephane Bonhomme, 2021. "Teams: Heterogeneity, Sorting, and Complementarity," Papers 2102.01802, arXiv.org.
    19. Achyuta Adhvaryu & Anant Nyshadham & Jorge A. Tamayo, 2019. "Managerial Quality and Productivity Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 25852, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Godøy, Anna & Huitfeldt, Ingrid, 2020. "Regional variation in health care utilization and mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human capital; Teamwork; Productivity; Performance pay; Non-partite networks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ucn:wpaper:202101. 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: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.html .

    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.