9/05/2006 Add a comment

A wonderful op-ed by Tom Lutz that argues for flexible work weeks and schedules. I am encouraged by the increasing prevalence of flex time and telecommuting. Ben, do you have economics models that can help back this up? William

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  1. Blogger ben: clearly the advantages of telecommuting are going to those who have jobs which are complementary to new technologies: email, video conferencing, etc. you can't telecommute to a factory, or to a restaurant or grocery store.

    and having a flexible schedule is what's known as a "compensating differential" in labor economics. Basically people are willing to be paid less because of the positive attributes of their job. In academia, those positives (flexible schedule, researching whatever you want) seem to outweigh the negatives (dealing with students, dealing with students), so the pay of academics is below that of some similarly educated folks (e.g. lawyers). Not all academics, of course, but the averages.     9/06/2006