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  • October 2015
  • Article
  • Journal of Labor Economics

The Value of Bosses

By: Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw and Christopher Stanton
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Abstract

How and by how much do supervisors enhance worker productivity? Using a company-based data set on the productivity of technology-based services workers, supervisor effects are estimated and found to be large. Replacing a boss who is in the lower 10% of boss quality with one who is in the upper 10% of boss quality increases a team's total output by more than would adding one worker to a nine member team. Workers assigned to better bosses are less likely to leave the firm. A separate normalization implies that the average boss is about 1.75 times as productive as the average worker.

Keywords

Supervisors; Management Skills; Employees; Performance Productivity

Citation

Lazear, Edward P., Kathryn L. Shaw, and Christopher Stanton. "The Value of Bosses." Journal of Labor Economics 33, no. 4 (October 2015): 823–861.
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About The Author

Christopher T. Stanton

Entrepreneurial Management
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