Microeconomics Seminar with Mitchell Hoffman (Toronto)

"Is This Really Kneaded? Ask the Manager! A Large-scale Trial on the Effects of Paperwork Reduction (PDF)" (joint with Guido Friebel, Matthias Heinz, Tobias Kretschmer, and Nick Zubanov). 

In a large German bakery chain, many workers report negative perceptions of paperwork. Randomly removing two of the most onerous paperwork duties (one checklist and one non-checklist duty) in half of stores, sales increase by 2-3\% and store manager attrition is substantially reduced. Beneficial effects are fully concentrated in stores where regional managers predict that the treatment will be effective, reflecting substantial heterogeneity in returns that is well-understood by these upper managers. Sales impacts are also smaller in larger stores, reflecting that some paperwork helps coordinate production. Effects appear not to come from workers having more time for production. Rather, most effects are indirect, with employees intrinsically valuing that the firm reduced their paperwork. As a result of the RCT, the firm implemented firmwide reductions in paperwork, eliminating paperwork that employees regard as demeaning, but keeping paperwork that helps coordinate production.