We are pleased to announce that the Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy will be inviting Professor Guido Friebel (Goethe University Frankfurt, CEPR, IZA) to give a special seminar and intensive lectures on March 6-7, 2023. We look forward to your active participation. (Professor Guido Friebel’s profile)
Special seminar: “Is this really kneaded: Eliminating potentially harmful monitoring practices in a large-scale trial” with Matthias Heinz, Mitchell Hoffman, Tobias Kretschmer, Nick Zubanov”
- Date & Time: March 6th (Mon) 16:30-18:00
- Format: In-person and online (zoom)
- Venue: Room 305, Bldg. 3, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
Abstract:
In a large German bakery chain, many workers report negative perceptions of monitoring via checklists and other paperwork. We survey workers and managers about the value and time costs to all paperwork duties at the firm, and randomly remove two of the most onerous and low-value duties in half of stores. Sales increase by 2-3\% and store manager attrition is substantially reduced, while problems identified via mystery shopping are unchanged. Beneficial effects are fully concentrated in stores where regional managers predict that the treatment will be effective, reflecting substantial heterogeneity in returns that is well-understood by these upper managers. Effects appear not to come from workers having more time for production, but rather indirectly from employees intrinsically valuing that the firm reduced their paperwork. As a result of the RCT, the firm implemented firmwide reductions in monitoring, eliminating a checklist that employees regard as demeaning, but keeping a checklist that helps coordinate production.
Co-sponsors: Personnel Economics Workshop, the Empirical Microeconomics Seminar and TCER
Intensive lectures: “RCTs within firms”
- Date & Time: March 6th (Mon) and 7th (Tue), 13:00-14:30
- Format: In-person
- Venue: Room 305, Bldg. 3, Waseda Campus, Waseda University
Please find the attached syllabus RCTs within Firms_syllabus_Feb2023 for the details.
Co-sponsors: Personnel Economics Workshop and the Empirical Microeconomics Seminar
Registration required for both events. Please register from here.
For participants of the seminar via online, please also register from here.
Free admission.
Contact: The Owan lab, Waseda University
[email protected]
