The Emerging Science of Worker Productivity
There’s a puzzle at the heart of our economy that has troubled economists for decades. The question is this: why do people work hard in environments where they are poorly monitored and paid a fixed wage, rather than a performance-related one.Surely any rational worker would do the bare minimum to get by.
And sure enough, the key result in Horton’s work is that worker productivity is easily pliable The big question is this: if colleagues affect each other’s work, should this influence be encouraged or discouraged in the workplace.
Horton’s answer is that it depends; but on exactly what, he has yet to nail down. Clearly, there are interesting times ahead for workers on the Mechanical Turk.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1008.2437: Employer Expectations, Peer Effects and Productivity: Evidence from a Series of Field Experiments
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets
When wastewater surveillance turns into a hunt for a single infected individual, the ethics get tricky.
The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.
Plug-in hybrids are often sold as a transition to EVs, but new data from Europe shows we’re still underestimating the emissions they produce.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.