RUO SHANGGUAN

The School of Economics Jinan University

Email: roy1312@gmail.com

Hi, I am Ruo Shangguan.

I am an assistant professor at the School of Economics, Jinan University.

Research Interests:

International trade, Organizational economics.

Education:

Ph.D. in Economics, University of Tokyo 2020

Selected Research:

Enhancing Team Productivity through Shorter Working Hours: Evidence from the Great Recession

with Jed DeVaro, Hideo Owan

VOXEU Columns

When output demand drops during recessions, employers decrease labor inputs by cutting workers and/or hours. If pre-recession hours were excessive, cutting hours might increase labor productivity, given an inverted-U-shaped hours-productivity profile. When total hours decrease in team settings, labor reallocation causes hours to be concentrated among top performers. The adjustment process is examined using single-firm Japanese data on construction design projects. A theoretical model is proposed and calibrated to analyze within-team labor allocation. We find that in response to the hours decrease resulting from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis: (1) total productivity improves by more than the increase in individual productivity, the labor share becomes more concentrated, and team size decreases; (2) the productivity improvement is greater for larger teams and less productive teams; (3) larger teams exhibit lower average productivity because weaker workers join teams when more hours are needed than the stars can handle.


Contact me: roy1312@gmail.com