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Eugenio Proto

University of Glasgow, UK, and IZA, Germany

IZA Word of Labor is a very useful tool to foster the impact of academic research into the real word. This is an extremely important goal, because I firmly believe that the research in economics should ultimately contribute to everybody’s wellbeing

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Alec Cairncross Professor of Applied Economics and Econometrics at the University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School

Research interest

Applied economics, behavioral economics, experimental economics, development economics

Website

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/business/staff/eugenioproto/

Past positions

Associate Professor in Economics at University of Warwick, UK (2008– 2021); Lecturer in Economics at University of Warwick (2003–2008); Lecturer in Economics at University of Bristol (2002–2003)

Qualifications

PhD Economics, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2004

Selected publications

  • “National happiness and genetic distance: A cautious exploration.” Economic Journal (Forthcoming) (with A. Oswald).

  • “Smithian growth through creative organization.” Review of Economics and Statistics 96:5 (2014): 796–811 (with P. Legros and A. Newman).

  • “Happiness and productivity.” Journal of Labor Economics 33:4 (2015): 789–822 (with A. Oswald and D. Sgroi).

  • “Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress.” Journal of Development Economics (Forthcoming) (with S. Broadberry and S. Ghosal).

  • “Democracy, collective action and intra-elite conflict.” Journal of Public Economics 93 (2009): 1078–1089 (with S. Ghosal).

article(s)

  • Are happy workers more productive?

    Firms’ concerns about the well-being of their employees are largely supported by the evidence

    Eugenio Proto, December 2016
    Recently, large companies like Google have made substantial investments in the well-being of their workers. While evidence shows that better performing companies have happier employees, there has been much less research on whether happy employees contribute to better company performance. Finding causal relations between employee well-being and company performance is important for firms to justify spending corporate resources to provide a happier work environment for their employees. While correlational and laboratory studies do find a positive relationship, the evidence remains sparse.
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