Who should work, and how much?

• Jonna Olsson interviewed by
• Tim Phillips
• 14 Feb 2025

Recorded at the CEPR Paris Symposium. Do the most productive people work more or less than others? It’s a question that is constantly asked in economics, not least because the available data that compares the differences in working hours between rich and poor countries, or the same country over time, often seems to confound our expectations. Jonna Olsson tells Tim Phillips about how a simple model gives us an insight into the problem and suggests one way we can make sense of this puzzle.