Work Environment and Individual Background: Explaining Regional Shirking Differentials in a Large Italian Firm*
研究一家意大利大银行中南北部员工偷懒（缺勤和不当行为）的差异，发现个人背景、群体互动和员工分类是主要原因，而歧视等其他因素不重要。
The prevalence of shirking within a large Italian bank appears to be characterized by significant regional differentials. In particular, absenteeism and misconduct episodes are substantially more prevalent in the south. We consider a number of potential explanations for this fact: different individual backgrounds; group-interaction effects; sorting of workers across regions; differences in local attributes; different hiring policies; and discrimination against southern workers. Our analysis suggests that individual backgrounds, group-interaction effects, and sorting effects contribute to explaining the north-south shirking differential. None of the other explanations appears to be of first-order importance.