PRODUCTIVITY PUZZLES. Businesses taking a dim view of surfing at work (requires registration.) That's a serious point, it's possible to lose all sorts of time online, and some people face clearer boundaries between work and play than do I. But note this premise from a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union: "We're all operating on a 24/7 schedule now, and people who engage in some personal business on the job do it because their personal time is increasingly limited." Lots of food for thought here. First, are average working hours longer or shorter today than they were five, or ten, let alone 50 years ago? (Consider in particular the phenomenon of Friday rush hours starting around 1 pm during the summertime, as is frequently noted by the Chicago traffic reporters. Is it different in your town?) Second, think about the common lament of employers: a dearth of skilled workers. To be sure, I use statements such as that as a way of inspiring students to be complete on assignments, prepare for exams, and check their term papers carefully. But something else has occurred to me, which my labor-economics colleagues tell me is terra incognita Karlsonensis (I'm known for occasionally talking in riddles.) Mightn't this dearth of skilled workers be evidence of a breakdown in a pooling equilibrium? Think about the typical terms of employment offered a high achiever: we will pay you a lot, and you bear a high risk of being let go, and some of your compensation will be contingent on stock values, and we basically own you. Such a proposition might be efficient, if your goal is to obtain the highest ability people for the corporate level (see the Lazear and Rosen tournament model of compensation.) But must everybody play in the same tournament? Are there no gains from trade in identifying people who would be able to do a proper job with fewer burdens (in some ways I'm echoing the "mommy track" argument here, but aren't there other reasons to want to be subject to less stress?) What would such a separating equilibrium look like? How, most efficiently, to identify solid performers without either subjecting all of them to the tournament treadmill or stigmatizing some of them as failures?