TY - JOUR T1 - The Response of Worker Effort to Piece Rates JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 881 LP - 890 DO - 10.3368/jhr.XXXVIII.4.881 VL - XXXVIII IS - 4 AU - M. Ryan Haley Y1 - 2003/10/02 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/XXXVIII/4/881.abstract N2 - Using firm-level payroll data from the Midwest logging industry, I compute a worker’s productivity response to a change in piece-rate pay, an elasticity of effort, using an empirical specification developed in Paarsch and Shearer (1999). Maximum-likelihood estimation of an agency-based structural econometric model of worker choice yields elasticities ranging from 0.413 to 1.507. These estimates are smaller than, but qualitatively similar to, those reported in Paarsch and Shearer, suggesting that their model has perhaps more general applicability than their British Columbia tree-planting example. ER -