Arbeitspapier

Employee Health and Firm Performance

When workers are in bad health, their productivity declines. We investigate whether the health of employees affects firm performance, taking advantage of the severity of the seasonal influenza seasons as a source of exogenous variation. We find that firms whose employees are particularly affected by influenza experience reductions in their return on assets and in net income. These results are not driven by firm-specific characteristics, as we find the same relationship between influenza severity and firm performance within firms, at the establishment level. We also document substantial heterogeneity in the effects, with small firms and labor-intensive firms driving our findings. This suggests that labor is an important driver of firm performance and that capital-intensive and larger firms are better able to shift resources in response to temporary shocks to their workforce. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that smaller firms may be better off subsidizing vaccination programs for their employees.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15147

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
Health Behavior
Corporate Finance and Governance: General
Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
Thema
seasonal influenza
health shock
firm performance

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Rettl, Daniel A.
Schandlbauer, Alexander
Trandafir, Mircea
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2022

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Rettl, Daniel A.
  • Schandlbauer, Alexander
  • Trandafir, Mircea
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2022

Ähnliche Objekte (12)