Work Hours Mismatch

IF 6.2 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Econometrica Pub Date : 2026-06-08 DOI:10.3982/ECTA21849

Marta Lachowska, Alexandre Mas, Raffaele Saggio, Stephen A. Woodbury

引用次数: 0

Abstract

We apply a revealed preference approach to administrative data from Washington to show that constraints on work hours are widespread: Workers have limited discretion over hours at a given employer, and there is substantial mismatch of workers who prefer long hours to employers that provide short hours. Voluntary job transitions imply a ratio of the marginal rate of substitution of earnings for hours to the wage rate of 0.5–0.6 for prime-age workers. The average absolute deviation between observed and optimal hours is about 15%, and low-wage workers face particularly acute constraints on hours. On average, observed hours tend to be less than preferred levels, and workers would require a 12% higher wage with their current employer to be as well off as with an employer offering ideal hours. These findings suggest that hour constraints are an equilibrium feature of the labor market because long-hour jobs are costly to employers.

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工作时间不匹配

我们对来自华盛顿的行政数据采用了一种揭示偏好的方法，以表明对工作时间的限制是普遍存在的：工人在给定雇主的工作时间上的自由裁量权有限，而且喜欢长时间工作的工人与提供短时间工作的雇主之间存在着实质性的不匹配。自愿工作转换意味着工作时间收入的边际替代率与黄金年龄工人的工资率之比为0.5-0.6。观察到的工作时间与最佳工作时间之间的平均绝对偏差约为15%，低薪工人面临的工作时间限制尤其严重。平均而言，观察到的工作时间往往低于理想的水平，而工人们要求在现在的雇主那里获得比在提供理想工作时间的雇主那里更高12%的工资。这些发现表明，工时限制是劳动力市场的一个均衡特征，因为长时间的工作对雇主来说是昂贵的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Econometrica 社会科学-数学跨学科应用

CiteScore

11.00

自引率

3.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6-12 weeks

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