Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/282085 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 393
Publisher: 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München und Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Collaborative Research Center Transregio 190 - Rationality and Competition, München und Berlin
Abstract: 
Conflicts between management and workers are common and can have significant impacts on productivity. Combining ethnographic, survey and administrative records from a large Bangladeshi sweater factory, we study how workers responded to management's decision to lay off about a quarter of the workers following a period of labor unrest. Our main finding is that the mass layoff resulted in a large and persistent reduction in the productivity of surviving workers. Moreover, it is specifically the firing of peers with whom workers likely had social connections - friends - that matters. Additional evidence on defect rates suggests a deliberate shading of performance by workers in order to punish the factory's management.
Subjects: 
layoffs
productivity
morale
relational contracts
JEL: 
J50
M50
O12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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