Colleen Flaherty Manchester

Is the Clock Still Ticking? An Evaluation of the Consequences of Stopping the Tenure Clock

Using a longitudinal administrative data set from a large research university, the authors empirically evaluate the consequences of using stop the clock (STC) policies for the career success of tenure track faculty. STC policies were introduced approximately 40 years ago, yet surprisingly little has been written about how they affect career outcomes. The prevalence of the ideal worker norm in academia raises the possibility of negative consequences as evaluators may treat STC policy use as a signal that the faculty member lacks sufficient commitment to his or her academic role. Consistent with this possibility, the authors find that faculty members who stop their clock for family reasons incur a salary penalty relative to faculty members who do not stop their clock, which cannot be explained by differences in productivity. Alternatively, faculty members who use the policy are not at a promotion disadvantage as compared with nonusers, and they actually have higher promotion rates.

How Costly is Welfare Stigma? Separating Psychological Costs from Time Costs

This paper empirically decomposes the costs of welfare participation using a model of labor supply and participation in multiple welfare programs. Prior estimates of the cost of welfare participation have not differentiated psychological costs, or stigma, from the effort required to become eligible and maintain eligibility (time costs). The relative size of these two costs has implications for policy. We find that psychological costs are at least as large as the time costs associated with participation in food assistance programs. In addition, we find that the incidence of psychological costs is inconsistent with these costs acting as an effective screening mechanism.

General Human Capital and Employee Mobility: How Tuition Reimbursement Increases Retention through Sorting and Participation

Using administrative data from a large establishment that implemented a tuition reimbursement program, the author examines the relative importance of two channels by which these employer-sponsored general training programs increase employee retention. The first channel operates through the type of workers that sort into firms with tuition reimbursement programs versus firms without a program. The second channel is the direct effect on retention due to employees participating in the program. In this setting, the author finds that 80% of the programs overall effect on retention comes through sorting. The author also exploits information on degree major to evaluate potential mechanisms outside standard human capital theory for how participation in general training increases retention.

Work-family conflict and self-discrepant time allocation at work.

We examine the relationships between work-to-family conflict, time allocation across work activities, and the outcomes of work satisfaction, well-being, and salary in the context of self-regulation and self-discrepancy theories. We posit work-to-family conflict is associated with self-discrepant time allocation such that employees with higher levels of work-to-family conflict are likely to allocate less time than preferred to work activities that require greater self-regulatory resources (e.g., tasks that are complex, or those with longer term goals that delay rewards and closure) and allocate more time than preferred to activities that demand fewer self-regulatory resources or are replenishing (e.g., those that provide closure or are prosocial). We suggest this self-discrepant time allocation (actual vs. preferred time allocation) is one mechanism by which work-to-family conflict leads to negative employee consequences (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000; Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2005). Using polynomial regression and response surface methodology, we find that discrepancies between actual and preferred time allocations to work activities negatively relate to work satisfaction, psychological well-being, and physical well-being. Self-discrepant time allocation mediates the relationship between work-to-family conflict and work satisfaction and well-being, while actual time allocation (rather than the discrepancy) mediates the relationship between work-to-family conflict and salary. We find that women are more likely than men to report self-discrepant time allocations as work-to-family conflict increases.

The Effect of Time Use in Explaining Male–Female Productivity Differences Among Economists

This study examines the opportunity cost of non‐research responsibilities on research output. Using a sample of early career faculty members who received their Ph.D. in economics, we consider the effect of two dimensions of time use on research output: (1) time allocation, or how time is divided between research and other duties and (2) time concentration, or how research time is distributed during the academic year relative to summer months. This second dimension has not been used in prior studies on research productivity; however, the inherent delays in the publication process as well as start‐up costs may imply that concentrating research time exclusively in the summer months reduces research output. We find that both dimensions of time use are significant predictors of peer‐reviewed publications and that time concentration is a significant predictor of submissions. We find gender differences in both dimensions of time use, which are attributable to gender differences in employment at research institutions and on‐going childcare responsibilities.

Ironic Effects of Flexible Work Practices on Parents' Career Success

The increased prevalence of flexible work practices (FWPs) has been driven in part by an effort to enable career success for employees who have significant personal-life responsibilities, including...

Employee Mobility and Employer-Provided Retirement Plans

This paper provides new insights into the effect of the widespread transition from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pension plans on employee mobility. Pension plans may affect employee mobility both through an “incentive effect,” where the bundle of benefit characteristics, such as vesting rules, relative liquidity and the risk/return tradeoff affect turnover directly, and a “selection effect,” where employees with different underlying mobility tendencies select into firms with different types of pension plans. In this paper, we quantify the role of selection by exploiting a natural experiment at a single employer in which an employee’s probability of transitioning from a DB to a DC plan was exogenously affected by the default provisions of the transition. Using a differences-in-regression-discontinuities (DRD) estimator, we find evidence that employees with higher mobility tendencies self-select into the DC plan. Furthermore, we find a negative direct effect of DC enrollment on turnover that takes place within one year. Our results suggest that selection likely contributes to an observed positive relationship between the transition from DB to DC plans and employee mobility in settings where employees choose plans or employers.

Retirement Plan Type and Employee Mobility: The Role of Selection

Relative to defined benefit (DB) plans, defined contribution (DC) plans have been linked to greater employee mobility. Because employees with different underlying mobility tendencies may sort across plans or firms, the relationship between plan type and mobility may be due to selection. We identify the role of selection by exploiting a natural experiment at an employer, in which the transition from a DB to a DC pension plan was affected by default rules. Using the default assignment as a source of exogenous variation in plan enrollment, we find that employees with higher mobility tendencies self-select into the DC plan.