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Sick of your colleagues' absence?

Author

Listed:
  • Hesselius, Patrik

    (Institute for Labour Market policy Evaluation)

  • Johansson, Per

    (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)

  • Nilsson, Peter

    (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)

Abstract
We utilize a large-scale randomized social experiment to identify how coworkers affect each other’s effort as measured by work absence. The experiment altered the work absence incentives for half of all employees living in Göteborg, Sweden. Using administrative data we are able to recover the treatment status of all workers in more than 3,000 workplaces. We first document that employees in workplaces with a high proportion treated co-workers increase their own absence levels significantly. We then examine the heterogeneity of the treatment effect in order to explore what mechanisms are underlying the peer effect. While a strong effect of having a high proportion of treated coworkers is found for the nontreated workers, no significant effects are found for the treated workers. These results suggest that pure altruistic social preferences can be ruled out as the main motivator for the behaviour of a nonnegligible proportion of the employees in our sample.

Suggested Citation

  • Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per & Nilsson, Peter, 2009. "Sick of your colleagues' absence?," Working Paper Series 2009:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2009_002
    as

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    File URL: http://www.ifau.se/upload/pdf/se/2009/wp09-02.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social interactions; employer emkloyee data; work absence; fairness; reciprocal preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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