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Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?
The Quarterly Journal of Economics ( IF 11.1 ) Pub Date : 2024-11-28 , DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjae038
Supreet Kaur, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, Frank Schilbach

Workers who are worried about their personal finances may find it hard to focus at work. If so, reducing financial concerns could by itself increase productivity. We test this hypothesis in a sample of low-income Indian piece-rate manufacturing workers. We stagger when wages are paid out: some workers are paid earlier and receive a cash infusion while others remain liquidity constrained. The cash infusion leads workers to reduce their financial concerns by immediately paying off debts and buying household essentials. Subsequently, they become more productive at work: their output increases by 7% (0.11 SD), and they make fewer costly, unintentional mistakes. Workers with more cash-on-hand thus not only work faster but also more attentively, suggesting improved cognition. These effects are concentrated among more financially constrained workers. We argue that mechanisms such as gift exchange or nutrition cannot account for our results. Instead, our findings suggest that financial strain, at least partly through psychological channels, has the potential to reduce earnings exactly when money is most needed.

中文翻译:


财务问题会降低工人的工作效率吗?



担心个人财务状况的员工可能会发现很难专注于工作。如果是这样,减少财务问题本身就可以提高生产力。我们在印度低收入计件工资制造业工人的样本中检验了这一假设。我们在支付工资时错开:一些工人提前获得工资并获得现金注入,而另一些工人则仍然受到流动性限制。现金注入使工人通过立即偿还债务和购买家庭必需品来减少他们的财务担忧。随后,他们的工作效率更高:他们的产出增加了 7% (0.11 SD),并且他们犯的代价高昂的无意错误更少。因此,手头现金较多的员工不仅工作得更快,而且更专心,这表明认知能力有所提高。这些影响集中在经济拮据的工人中。我们认为,礼物交换或营养等机制不能解释我们的结果。相反,我们的研究结果表明,财务压力,至少部分是通过心理渠道,有可能在最需要金钱的时候减少收入。
更新日期:2024-11-28
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