We investigate whether working time is related to the intensity of income comparisons and relative income. Our simple theoretical model demonstrates that the effects of relative income concerns depend on whether an individual can choose contractual working hours and/or overtime. In the empirical...

Despite the ongoing public debate about precarious working conditions in academia, there is only little evidence on working hours and overtime work for the group of (non-tenured) junior academics. By using unique longitudinal survey data on the occupational situation and careers of doctoral...

In 2012, in the midst of a recession, a labour law reform in Portugal allowed firms to reduce the overtime premium paid to their workers by 50% or more. Until then, overtime premiums were set by law at a relatively high level and could not be cut unilaterally. We analyse matched...

Standard hours, a major component of total work hours, vary considerably across Europe. Many countries lowered their standard work hours during the 1980s and 1990s, attempting to boost employment by splitting up a fixed number of worker-hours among more workers. Germany has seen a partial...

This paper addresses the on-going controversy regarding whether to allow private sector employers to substitute compensatory (comp) time for premium pay for workers' overtime work hours. It employs data from a unique survey that actually asked over 800 workers their preference for pay vs. future...

This paper provides a first assessment of the causal impact of the 2018-2021 reform in Korea meant to combat its long working-hour culture. The reform consists of lowering the statutory limit on total weekly working hours from 68 to 52. We apply a difference-in-difference approach in which we...

This study provides the first analysis of Japan's 2018 Work Style Reform (WSR) and its effects on firms and workers, using payroll and survey data in a difference-in-difference design. We find that the reform's introduction of an overtime cap reduces average monthly overtime hours by 5 hours...

Sharing the available stock of work more fairly is a popular concern in the public policy debate. One policy proposal is to reduce overtime work in order to allow the employment of more people. This paper suggests that such a concept faces major problems. Using Germany as a case study, it is...

To reduce the incidence of very long working hours, Korea is gradually implementing a major working-time reform, which lowers the statutory limit on total weekly working hours from 68 to 52 between 2018-2021. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the reform with three key insights....