Chart of the Week: The Productivity Penalty: World Cup Winners and Losers

IMF Blog, July 2, 2018

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Canonical URL: Chart of the Week: The Productivity Penalty: World Cup Winners and Losers

Publication: The Editors
Date: July 2, 2018
Credit: People wait while their electric cars charge, in Xiamen, China
Topic: Interaction between the 2018 FIFA World Cup broadcast times and labor productivity as measured by output per hour worked.

The potential productivity impact of the World Cup depends on geographic location measured by time zones.
Quoting Felix Richter: “While bosses in large parts of Asia and Australia can relax because of the games starting at night, Brazilian employers should probably cut their workers some slack over the next few weeks: because of the time difference more than 60 hours of World Cup action will be played during regular working hours in Rio.”
Geographic distance from match start times (time zones) is the primary determinant of how much work-time overlap occurs with World Cup matches.

Productivity is defined as the amount produced per hour of work and as how much value an average hour of work adds to the economy.
The IMF highlights productivity as a central topic of analysis, noting focused work on trends since the global crisis and the broader importance of productivity for growth.

Time-zone alignment with match schedules creates measurable variation in potential productivity losses during the World Cup.
Employers and policymakers in locations with significant daytime match overlap (for example, Rio de Janeiro as cited) may need to anticipate and adapt to reduced work-hour attention or output during the tournament.

Source: Chart of the Week: The Productivity Penalty: World Cup Winners and Losers — The Editors, July 2, 2018.