Input Allocation, Workforce Management and Productivity Spillovers: Evidence from Personnel Data
研究在秘鲁一家鸡蛋生产厂中，投入品质量差异如何引发工人间的生产率溢出，发现同事日产量增加会降低自身产量和质量，原因在于管理层基于投入质量信息做出解雇决策导致的搭便车行为。
This article shows how input heterogeneity triggers productivity spillovers at the workplace. In an egg production plant in rural Peru, workers produce output combining effort with inputs of heterogeneous quality. Exploiting variation in the productivity of inputs assigned to workers, we find evidence of a negative causal effect of an increase in coworkers’ daily output on own output and its quality. We show theoretically and suggest empirically that the effect captures free riding among workers, which originates from the way the management informs its dismissal decisions. Our study and results show that input heterogeneity and information on input quality contribute to determine the shape of incentives and have implications for human resource management, production management, and the interaction between the two. Counterfactual analyses show that processing information on inputs or changing their allocation among workers can generate significant productivity gains.