Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Coordinated Firm-Level Work Processes and Macroeconomic Resilience
Author-Name: Moritz Kuhn
Author-Email: mokuhn@uni-bonn.de
Author-Name: Jinfeng Luo
Author-Email: jluo@uni-bonn.de
Author-Name: Iourii Manovskii
Author-Email: manovski@econ.upenn.edu
Author-Name: Xincheng Qiu
Author-Email: qiux@sas.upenn.edu
Classification-JEL: E23, E24, J24, J65
Keywords: Labor markets, Coordination, Economic resilience, Work process, Covid-19

Abstract: The production processes at many firms rely on a highly choreographed and 
interdependent network of workers performing specialized jobs. We designed and implemented a
targeted employer survey to measure the extent of coordination in work processes. We
link this firm-level coordination measure to administrative data and find that firms with
a more coordinated work process are more productive, pay higher wages, and experience lower 
worker turnover. Yet, these firms suffer more severe negative consequences
from worker absences and adopt various strategies to mitigate such risk, the reliance on
which we document. While the standard unemployment insurance policy pays benefits
to workers who lose their jobs, the short-time work policy widely adopted in Germany
compensates workers who remain employed with reduced hours for the associated loss of
earnings. This policy can benefit employers with a more coordinated production process
because they can lower the scale of production by reducing hours while keeping all workers
needed for the production process employed, increasing the resilience of these employers
to large idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks

Length: 60
Creation-Date: 2022-11
Revision-Date: 
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp373
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2022_373