Not incentivized yet efficient: working from home in the public sector

Fenizia, Alessandra and Kirchmaier, Thomas ORCID: 0000-0002-8938-2206 (2024) Not incentivized yet efficient: working from home in the public sector. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP2036). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

This paper studies whether working from home (WFH) affects workers' performance in public sector jobs. Studying public sector initiatives allows us to establish baseline estimates on the impact of WFH net of incentives. Exploiting novel administrative data and plausibly exogenous variation in work location, we find that WFH increases productivity by 12%. These productivity gains are primarily driven by reduced distractions. They are not explained by differences in quality, shift length, or task allocation. The productivity gains more than double when tasks are assigned by the supervisor.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion...
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D23 - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J4 - Particular Labor Markets > J45 - Public Sector Labor Markets L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L23 - Organization of Production M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting > M5 - Personnel Economics > M54 - Labor Management (team formation, worker empowerment, job design, tasks and authority, work arrangemetns, job satisfaction)
Date Deposited:	06 Feb 2025 13:39
Last Modified:	01 Mar 2025 04:27
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/126773

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