This paper reports the results of an individual real effort laboratory experiment where subjects are paid for measured performance. Measured performance equals actual performance plus noise. We compare a stable environment where the noise is small with a volatile environment where the noise is...

It has been claimed that many workers in modern economies think that their job is socially useless, i.e. that it makes no or a negative contribution to society. However, the evidence so far is mainly anecdotal. We use a representative dataset comprising 100,000 workers from 47 countries at four...