Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Nov, 2021, Volume 89, Issue 6

Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Team Performance

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA18461
p. 2637-2657

Ben Weidmann, David J. Deming

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper, we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to team production. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their team to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals “team players.” Team players score significantly higher on a well‐established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education, and gender. Social skills—defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect—improve team performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Team Performance"

Weidmann, Ben, and David J. Deming

This online appendix contains material not found within the manuscript.

Supplement to "Team Players: How Social Skills Improve Team Performance"

Weidmann, Ben, and David J. Deming

This zip file contains replication files for the manuscript.