Evaluating the impact of a working time regulation on capital operating time. The French 35-hour work week experience

According to the literature on work-sharing, productivity gains on capital equipment may increase employment while diminishing weekly working hours. In this article, we evaluate the impact of the French 35-hour working week on capital operating time. We merge the French survey on Capital Operating Time (COT, Banque de France, Central Bank of France; 1989-2004) and administrative Working Time Reduction agreements files (WTR,DARES, French Ministry of Labour; May 2003). We construct shift-work-based capital operating time indicators. Using differences-in-differences econometric models, we show that the implementation of the 35-h our work week did not induce any reduction in COT. Hence, firms increase shift-work to compensate for the decrease in working hours.