Labor Economics Workshop: Virginia Minni of University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Reorganizing Work Inside the Firm: Task Change After Technology Adoption
with: Virginia Minni, assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Abstract:
We study task reorganization after technological change using worker–task-level data from a large Latin American bank. Two sequential interventions — automation of routine transactions and a later redesign of performance evaluation — separately alter production technology and organizational design without reducing employment. Automation raises output per worker but generates only limited task reallocation: workers expand routine production rather than reallocating effort toward higher-value tasks. Task change occurs only after the firm redesigns performance evaluation, predominantly among workers with low adjustment costs, proxied by tenure. High-productivity managers accelerate reallocation mainly among low tenure workers. The results highlight how automation-induced task complementarities require deliberate organizational redesign, with gains shaped by the distribution of adjustment costs within the firm.