| Sumario: | A Cobb-Douglas production function is used to determine whether by restricting the standard workweek and substituting workers for hours, firms will be forced to substitute highly productive hours for less productive new hires. Industry-specific data by state from 1972 to 1978 and by four-digit-SIC code from 1958 to 1994 are used to calculate worker-hour production functions for each two-digit-SIC industry. Findings indicate that the return to hours is substantially less than 1 for most U.S. industries. Furthermore, returns to hours are generally less than returns to workers for most U.S. industries, which casts some doubt on the proposition that a marginal substitution from hours to workers will bring about a decrease in labor productivity.
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