Health Economics
Research Article

Measuring the effects of work loss on productivity with team production

Sean Nicholson

Corresponding Author

E-mail address: sn243@cornell.edu

Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, USA

Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University, 133 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA===Search for more papers by this author
Mark V. Pauly

Health Care Systems Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA

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Daniel Polsky

General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA

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Claire Sharda

USHH Outcomes Research & Management, Merck & Co., Inc., USA

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Helena Szrek

Health Care Systems Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA

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Marc L. Berger

USHH Outcomes Research & Management, Merck & Co., Inc., USA

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First published: 30 September 2005
Cited by: 84
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Abstract

Using data from a survey of 800 managers in 12 industries, we find empirical support for the hypothesis that the cost associated with missed work varies across jobs according to the ease with which a manager can find a perfect replacement for the absent worker, the extent to which the worker functions as part of a team, and the time sensitivity of the worker's output. We then estimate wage ‘multipliers’ for 35 different jobs, where the multiplier is defined as the cost to the firm of an absence as a proportion (often greater than one) of the absent worker's daily wage. The median multiplier is 1.28, which supports the view that the cost to the firm of missed work is often greater than the wage. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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