| Abstract: | This paper uses a game-theoretic model to analyze the incentives workers may have to play “hookey” from work given that there is an outwardly unobservable probability of being sick and thus being unable to work. We compare incentives and equilibria in labor-managed firms (LMFs) and in profit-maximizing firms (PMFs), both in single-period and repeated games. We show, among other things, that in an egalitarian LMF there are circumstances under which members will not work when it is optimal to work, while the PMF suffers from the opposite problem; daily paid workers will work even when it would be better if they did not. |
