Why do Smaller Firms Pay Less?
Abstract
This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men and the Current Population Survey for 1983 to examine the relationships among wages, firm size, and plant size. We reach three key findings. First, plant size has little independent effect on wages once we have controlled for firm size for firms with fewer than 1,000 employees, Second, we find evidence of sorting on observed and unobserved ability characteristics across firm sizes. Better educated and more stable workers are in larger firms. Third, results from a first-difference estimator indicate that about 60 percent of the wage-size effect is due to unobserved heterogeneity when all firms are considered and about 100 percent when firms with 25 or more employees are considered.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Paper provided by C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University in its series Working Papers with number 87-19.Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: 1987
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cvs:starer:87-19
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Postal: C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 998-8936
Fax: (212) 995-3932
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Web page: http://econ.as.nyu.edu/object/econ.cvstarr.html
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Postal: C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012
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Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- David S. Evans & Linda S. Leighton, 1989. "Why Do Smaller Firms Pay Less?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(2), pages 299-318.
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Pierre Grenier & David M. Gray, 1994. "Fermetures d'usines et durées du chômage : signaux et comportements de recherche d'emploi au Canada," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 113(2), pages 207-217.
- Pinheiro, Roberto B. & Visschers, Ludo, 2012.
"Unemployment risk and wage differentials,"
MPRA Paper
36907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Roberto Pinheiro & Ludo Visschers, 2012. "Unemployment risk and wage differentials," Economics Working Papers we1209, Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Economía.
- Uwaifo Oyelere, Ruth & Belton, Willie, 2008. "The Role of Information and Institutions in Understanding the Black-White Gap in Self-Employment," IZA Discussion Papers 3761, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
- Theodore M. Mitrakos & Georgios Th Simigiannis & Panagiota G. Tzamourani, 2005. "Indebtedness of Greek households: evidence from a survey," Economic Bulletin, Bank of Greece, Economic Research Department, issue 25, pages 13-35, AUgust.
- Bradley Ewing & Phanindra Wunnava, 2004. "The Trade-Off Between Supervision Cost and Performance Based Pay: Does Gender Matter?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 453-460, December.
- Idson, Todd L., 1995.
"Team production effects on earnings,"
Economics Letters,
Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 197-203, August.
- Idson, T., 1993. "Team Production Effects on Earnings," Discussion Papers 1993_14, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
- Lixin Cai & C. Jeffrey Waddoups, 2009. "The Role of Unobserved Heterogeneity and On-the-Job Training in the Employer Size-Wage Effect: Evidence from Australia," Working Papers 0915, University of Nevada, Las Vegas , Department of Economics.
- Schaffner, Julie Anderson, 1998. "Premiums to employment in larger establishments: evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 81-113, February.
- Bradley Ewing & Phanindra Wunnava, 2002. "The Trade-Off Between Supervision Cost and Performance-Based Pay: Does it Matter?," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0232, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
- Brown, Sarah & Sessions, John G., 2006. "Evidence on the relationship between firm-based screening and the returns to education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 498-509, October.
- Albaek, Karsten & Arai, Mahmood & Asplund, Rita & Barth, Erling & Strojer Madsen, Erik, 1998. "Measuring wage effects of plant size," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 425-448, December.
- Robertas Zubrickas, 2011. "Managerial accountability for payroll expense and firm-size wage effects," IEW - Working Papers 474, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
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