"New study shows 18% productivity decline by those working from home"
Color me skeptical. My reasons:
1. This "study" is a "working paper" and not peer-reviewed.
2. They claim to have accounted for accuracy in the paper, but doing this is notoriously hard. They could easily have made mistakes when they looked at accuracy.
(By "accuracy" I mean the accuracy of the data entry. You've gained nothing if you're going faster in the office, but also make more mistakes.)
3. Correlation is not causation.
4. Correlation is not causation.
5. Correlation is not causation.
If I had a dime for every crackpot who confuses correlation and causation, I'd be a rich man.
Illustration: some study shows that there is a correlation between taking a 30-minute walk per day, and better health. Someone latches onto this and says that everyone should walk 30 minutes per day to improve their health. They did not account for the fact that people who are healthy in the first place are those capable to take a walk every day. Nor do they account for the fact that those people who can afford the walk probably have money. When you have to work two jobs, the walk goes out the window. So it is not the daily walks that make people healthy, it is being healthy and having money that makes people able to take the walks.
I'm not at all convinced that there NOT is something else at play in this "study" and that correlation and causation have been confused.
I don't have proof of this, only an inkling. I've gone very quickly over the study.
#WorkFromHome #CorrelationIsNotCausation #WorkingPaper #PeerReview #NBER
https://www.techspot.com/news/99738-new-study-shows-18-decrease-productivity-working-home.html
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31515/w31515.pdf
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