The Productivity of Contractors: Evidence from the Emergency Department

The Productivity of Contractors: Evidence from the Emergency Department

Jordi Blanes i Vidal (LSE)

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ABSTRACT:

Firms often use external contractors to fill key roles, yet little is known about their productivity. We compare permanent and contracted doctors in the Emergency Department of a large public hospital. Both perform identical tasks, and patients are quasi-randomly assigned, allowing causal inference. Contracted doctors work 31% slower, spend 7% more on tests and treatments, and do not achieve better outcomes. Crucially, these gaps reflect the causal effect of employment status rather than selection. We uncover an important mechanism: employees perform more unpaid overtime to discharge their patients promptly, but only when doing so helps their fellow employees. 

BIO:

Jordi Blanes i Vidal is an associate professor at the Department of Management, LSE. He studied in Valencia and then LSE. He is an applied microeconomist, with work on Law and Economics, Political Economy, Economics of Crime, Organisational Economics, Financial Economics, and now Health Economics. Very much not a hedgehog, in the Isaiah Berlin sense. He has published at the Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Review, and Journal of Finance. He likes cooking and running, and believes in strategic complementarities.