Do reciprocal workers have higher returns to employer-sponsored training? Using a field experiment with random assignment to training combined with survey information on workers' reciprocal inclinations, the results show that reciprocal workers reciprocate employers' training investments by higher posttraining performance. This result, which is robust to controlling for observed personality traits and worker fixed effects, suggests that individuals reciprocate the firm's human capital investment with higher effort, in line with theoretical models on gift exchange in the workplace. This finding provides an alternative rationale to explain firm training investments even with the risk of poaching.

Do reciprocal workers have higher returns to employer-sponsored training? Using a field experiment with random assignment to training combined with survey information on workers’ reciprocal inclinations, the results show that reciprocal workers reciprocate employers’ training investments by higher post-training performance. This result, which is robust to controlling for observed personality traits and worker fixed effects, suggests that individuals reciprocate the firm’s human capital investment with higher effort, in line with theoretical models on gift exchange in the workplace. This finding provides an alternative rationale to explain firm training investments even with risk of poaching.

This paper provides new evidence on gender bias in teaching evaluations. We exploit a quasi-experimental dataset of 19,952 student evaluations of university faculty in a context where students are randomly allocated to female or male instructors. Despite the fact that neither students’ grades nor self-study hours are affected by the instructor’s gender, we find that women receive systematically lower teaching evaluations than their male colleagues. This bias is driven by male students’ evaluations, is larger for mathematical courses, and particularly pronounced for junior women. The gender bias in teaching evaluations we document may have direct as well as indirect effects on the career progression of women by affecting junior women’s confidence and through the reallocation of instructor resources away from research and toward teaching. (JEL: J16, J71, I23, J45)

The Dunning–Kruger effect states that low performers vastly overestimate their performance while high performers more accurately assess their performance. Researchers usually interpret this empirical pattern as evidence that the low skilled are vastly overconfident while the high skilled are more accurate in assessing their skill. However, measurement error alone can lead to a negative relationship between performance and overestimation, even if skill and overconfidence are unrelated. To clarify the role of measurement error, we restate the Dunning–Kruger effect in terms of skill and overconfidence. We show that we can correct for bias caused by measurement error with an instrumental variable approach that uses a second performance as instrument. We then estimate the Dunning–Kruger effect in the context of the exam grade predictions of economics students, using their grade point average as an instrument for their exam grade. Our results show that the unskilled are more overconfident than the skilled. However, as we predict in our methodological discussion, this relationship is significantly weaker than ordinary least squares estimates suggest.

This paper studies the link between working hours and productivity using daily informationon working hours and performance of a sample of call centre agents. We exploit variationin the number of hours worked by the same employee across days and weeks due tocentral scheduling, enabling us to estimate the effect of working hours on productivity. Wefind that as the number of hours worked increases, the average handling time for a callincreases, meaning that agents become less productive. This result suggests that fatiguecan play an important role, even in jobs with mostly part-time workers.

This paper studies the link between working hours and productivity using daily information on working hours and performance of a sample of call centre agents. We exploit variation in the number of hours worked by the same employee across days and weeks due to central scheduling, enabling us to estimate the effect of working hours on productivity. We find that as the number of hours worked increases, the average handling time for a call increases, meaning that agents become less productive. This result suggests that fatigue can play an important role, even in jobs with mostly part-time workers.

Measures of worker productivity can give important insights into how workers perform and how workplaces should be organized. Direct measures of productivity are used to study a range of questions, such as the effects of incentives on workers’ productivity, the influence of peers on behavior, or the accumulation of human capital on the job. For these and related questions, it is important to select appropriate performance measures. This choice is critical, as relying on inappropriate measures can lead to the design of inefficient incentives, poor employment contracts, or wrong policy conclusions.

This paper surveys the empirical literature on the behavior of referees in professionalfootball and other sports. Referees are typically appointed by a principal to be impartial, especiallywhen unbiased referee judgment is vital for the accomplishment of the principal’s objective.Answering whether referees make biased decisions and understanding the causes that lead refereesto digress from their principal duty of impartiality is therefore fundamental from a theoretical pointof view. At the same time, assessing the prevalence and origin of referee bias is germane to variousdomains of life. Referee bias is particularly relevant in sports, where partial decision-making candetermine competition outcomes, which can have strong repercussions on athletes’ careers andsupporters’ well-being.