This paper examines the role that work incentives play in the determination of work hours. Following previous research by Lang (1989), we use a conventional efficiency wage model to analyze how firms respond to worker preferences regarding wage-hours packages. We find that when workers are...

This paper examines the role that work incentives play in the determination of work hours. Following previous research by Lang (1989), we use a conventional efficiency wage model to analyze how firms respond to worker preferences regarding wage-hours packages. We find that when workers are...

Using an "effort-regulation" type of efficiency wage model, it is demonstrated that a firm may respond to slackening labor markets by acting to increase the intensity with which workers work. The magnitude of this work intensity effect depends on the structure of employment relations. Where...

In his seminal 1943 paper on the political business cycle, Michal Kalecki (1971) argued that industrial leaders feared full employment because the economic insecurity created by unemployment was necessary to keep wages low and maintain work intensity and discipline on the shop floor. On the...