Changing inequality in markets for workplace amenities

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hamermesh, DS
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/003355399556214
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 1085-1123
• 关键词: compensating wage differentials; UNITED-STATES; WORKERS COMPENSATION; labor-market; preferences; benefits; RISK

摘要

Among U.S. industries where earnings rose relatively from 1979-1995, injury rates declined relatively. Obversely, during the 1960s narrowing interindustry wage differentials were associated with an increase in the relative risk of injury in high-wage industries. Evidence from the NLSY suggests similar results among full-time workers between 1988 and 1996. Between 1973 and 1991 the disamenity of evening/night work was increasingly borne by low-wage male workers. Changing earnings inequality has understated changing inequality in the returns to work. Assuming skill-neutral changes in the cost of reducing these disamenities, estimates of the implied income elasticities of demand for amenities are well above unity.