團隊

19世紀末，經濟學家維爾弗雷多·帕累托（Vilfredo Pareto）觀察到義大利80%的財富集中在20%的人手中。 這一現象後來被美國管理學者約瑟夫·朱蘭（Joseph Juran）進一步發展，推論出著名的“80/20法則”：80%的結果（輸出）往往歸於20%的投入（輸入）。

Becker and Murphy proposed that task specialization raises productivity but is limited by the costs of coordinating workers. We propose that automation enables workers to specialize without coordination costs. To the extent that the cost of effort exhibits increasing differences, workers increase effort in nonautomated tasks and productivity. The proposition is supported by a field experiment among supermarket cashiers. Conventionally, supermarket cashiers perform two tasks: scanning purchases and collecting payment. Cashiers exhibited increasing differences in the cost of effort: when they scanned faster, they took longer to collect payments. We rotated cashiers between the conventional job design and one in which they specialized in scanning. The new job design increased cashier productivity in scanning by more than 10%. The faster scanning was not due to customer sorting or cashier learning. The proposition is also validated by a survey of taxi drivers. Drivers who reported that difficulties in finding their way affected their driving were more likely to use map apps.

本文結合新加坡最大的公立大學的學生記錄與收入調查數據，估算擁有學士學位的畢業生若多接受一年高等本科教育的回報。部份學院第四（榮譽）年的資格取決於第三年末成績是否達標，我們通過斷點迴歸設計對此進行研究。相對於成績差一點就達標的學生，第三年末平均成績略高於門檻的學生明顯更有可能完成第四年課程，並且於畢業後有更高的收入。額外一年的本科教育為學生在畢業六個月後帶來的收入回報率約為 12%。結合稅收數據亦顯示學生在畢業後至少四年仍受惠於此持續回報。此外，即使大學降低門檻以鼓勵更多學生完成第四年本科教育，额外一年高等教育带来的收入回報仍然可觀，證明此現象並不完全源於教育的信号机制。