Production and Learning in Teams

66 Pages Posted: 22 Oct 2018 Last revised: 20 Apr 2023

See all articles by Kyle Herkenhoff

Kyle Herkenhoff

University of Minnesota - Minneapolis

Jeremy Lise

University College London

Guido Menzio

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Gordon M. Phillips

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: October 2018

Abstract

The effect of coworkers on the learning and the productivity of an individual is measured combining theory and data. The theory is a frictional equilibrium model of the labor market in which production and the accumulation of human capital of an individual are allowed to depend on the human capital of coworkers. The data is a matched employer-employee dataset of US firms and workers. The measured production function is supermodular. The measured human capital function is non-linear: Workers catch-up to more knowledgeable coworkers, but are not dragged-down by less knowledgeable ones. The market equilibrium features a pattern of sorting of coworkers across teams that is inefficiently positive. This inefficiency results in low human capital individuals having too few chances to learn from more knowledgeable coworkers and, in turn, in a stock of human capital and a flow of output that are inefficiently low.

Suggested Citation

Herkenhoff, Kyle and Lise, Jeremy and Menzio, Guido and Phillips, Gordon M., Production and Learning in Teams (October 2018). NBER Working Paper No. w25179, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3270759

Kyle Herkenhoff (Contact Author)

University of Minnesota - Minneapolis ( email )

110 Wulling Hall, 86 Pleasant St, S.E.
308 Harvard Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

Jeremy Lise

University College London ( email )

Gower Street
London, WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom

Guido Menzio

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics ( email )

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science
133 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
United States
215-898-5170 (Phone)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
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Gordon M. Phillips

Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business ( email )

Hanover, NH 03755
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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