The impact of working time on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of public fleets: Evidence from a policy experiment

In 2008, Utah launched a reform of working time for which workers in treated public agencies were allowed to compress workweek from 5 to 4 days, by extending working hours from 8 to 10 per day. This paper estimates the impact of the initiative on the consumption of fuel and on the production of CO2 by public fleets. By assembling a new dataset on 43 public agencies and by adopting a difference-in-difference framework, a contraction in the consumption of fuel by 2% and a 14% decrease in the generation of CO2 was found.