Why do countries differ in their economic performance and labor productivity? Labor market policies and institutions are often advanced to answer this question, but can only partly explain cross-country differences in economic performance and productivity. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether the way we structure our day can partly explain these performance differences, thus complementing the standard view. Are daily work schedule centered on large pauses detrimental to productivity? On the opposite, is some minimum number of small pauses beneficial to productivity? And from an individual and family perspective, what are the effects of these different schedules on family wellbeing and health? The way, one organizes ones time may, in addition, be subject to constraints imposed by culture, society, or tradition. To answer our question, we present Time use data from three countries, France, Spain, and the UK, and analyze the importance of breaks between work spells on earnings and subjective measures of health and exhaustion.
(Joint work with Rafael Lalive, Université de Lausanne.)