Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements

Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements

Alexandre Mas and Amanda Pallais

Journal paper

American Economic Review

2017

We employ a discrete choice experiment in the employment process for a national call center to estimate the willingness to pay distribution for alternative work arrangements relative to traditional office positions. Most workers are not willing to pay for scheduling flexibility, though a tail of workers with high valuations allows for sizable compensating differentials. The average worker is willing to give up 20 percent of wages to avoid a schedule set by an employer on short notice, and 8 percent for the option to work from home. We also document that many job-seekers are inattentive, and we account for this in estimation.