Completed Projects - Telecommuting

Estimates for uncompensated wage elasticity showcase considerable variation across studies in labor economics. This issue becomes particularly salient when considering the extensive and intensive margins of labor supply, as elasticity estimates may exhibit varying magnitudes and even different signs when examined over different timeframes.

This variability can be attributed to the amalgamation of the extensive margin of within-task supply and the intensive margin of between-task supply into a single timeframe. For the former, we refer to the extent to which workers respond to changes in wage rates for tasks they are already engaged in. For the latter, we refer to the extent to which workers allocate their time and effort across different tasks in response to variations in wage rates. This research seeks to delve deeper into this matter by examining the individual-level variation in within- and between-task elasticities.

Online labor platforms are ideal for this task, as they break down jobs into discrete tasks and offer workers flexibility based on task demand. Compensation on these platforms is often tied to task completion, with a fixed reward associated with each task. Most platform workers operate as independent contractors, eliminating the need for traditional hiring and dismissal costs or fixed-hour contracts.

The study will conduct an online survey with an experimental component through online micro-task platforms like Prolific Academic, Clickworker, and AMT. Combining experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to the estimation of labor supply, this study seeks to retrieve these idiosyncratic elasticities and study how the two are connected.