What's Driving the New Economy? The Benefits of Workplace Innovation
February 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-03
Abstract
Using a unique nationally representative sample of U.S. establishements surveyed in 1993 and 1996, we examine the relationship between workplace innovations and establishment productivity and wages. We match plant level practices with plant level productivity and wage outcomes and estimate production functions and wage equation using both cross sectional and longitudinal data. We find a positive and significant relationship between the proportion of non-managers using computers and productivity of establishments. We find that firms that re-engineer their workplaces to incorporate more high performance practices experience higher productivity.
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