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Changing Inequality in Markets for Workplace Amenities

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Daniel S. Hamermesh

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Abstract

We know that earnings inequality has increased sharply in the United States since the late 1970s, but there has been no evidence on the changing inequality of nonmonetary aspects of work nor on how any such changes are related to changes in earnings. I begin by studying patterns of interindustry differences in occupational injuries during 1979-95, breaking the total burden of injuries into its components, risk of injury and injury duration. In those industries where earnings rose relatively, we observed a relative drop in injury rates and in the total burden of injuries. Obversely, during the 1960s interindustry wage differentials narrowed, a decline that was associated with an increase in the relative risk of injury in high-wage industries. Evidence for large sectors of Dutch industry from 1974-92 suggests that injury rates there fell most in sectors where wages grew most rapidly. Examination of another workplace disamenity, working evenings or nights, shows analogous results for the period 1973-91: This disamenity was increasingly borne by low-wage male workers. Changes in earnings inequality thus have understated absolute changes in inequality in the returns to work. All the outcomes are readily explicable as income effects of exogenous shocks to the distribution of full earnings in the presence of skill-neutral changes in the cost of reducing workplace disamenities. Under reasonable assumptions we can infer from the estimates that the demand for the amenities, workplace safety and desirable work times, is highly income-elastic.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6515.

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Date of creation: Apr 1998
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6515

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy

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  1. repec:fth:prinin:385 is not listed on IDEAS
  2. Ruser, John W, 1991. "Workers' Compensation and Occupational Injuries and Illnesses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 325-50, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Brown, Charles, 1980. "Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 113-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Biddle, Jeff E & Zarkin, Gary A, 1988. "Worker Preferences and Market Compensation for Job Risk," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(4), pages 660-67, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Hersch, Joni, 1998. "Compensating Differentials for Gender-Specific Job Injury Risks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 598-627, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Hwang, Hae-shin & Reed, W Robert & Hubbard, Carlton, 1992. "Compensating Wage Differentials and Unobserved Productivity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 835-58, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1996. "The Timing of Work Time Over Time," NBER Working Papers 5855, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Linda A. Bell & Richard B. Freeman, 1991. "The causes of rising interindustry wage dispersion in the United States," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 44(2), pages 275-287, January.
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  14. Juhn, Chinhui & Murphy, Kevin M & Pierce, Brooks, 1993. "Wage Inequality and the Rise in Returns to Skill," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 410-42, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Steve Bradley & Jim Taylor & Anh Ngoc Nguyen, 2003. "Relative pay and job satisfaction: some new evidence," Working Papers 000187, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Kevin A. Bryan & Leonardo Martinez, 2008. "On the evolution of income inequality in the United States," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 97-120. [Downloadable!]
  3. Ernesto Villanueva, 2004. "Compensating Wage Differentials and Voluntary Job Changes: Evidence from West Germany," Economics Working Papers 738, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alan Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Steve Bradley & Jim Taylor & Anh Ngoc Nguyen, 2003. "Job autonomy and job satisfaction: new evidence," Working Papers 000192, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
  6. Lawrence F Katz, 1998. "Reflections on US Labour Market Performance," RBA Annual Conference Volume, in: Guy Debelle & Jeff Borland (ed.), Unemployment and the Australian Labour Market Reserve Bank of Australia. [Downloadable!]
  7. Rafael Di Tella & Robert MacCulloch, 2005. "Gross National Happiness as an Answer to the Easterlin Paradox?," Macroeconomics 0504027, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Harry J. Holzer & Robert J. LaLonde, 1999. "Job Change and Job Stability Among Less-Skilled Young Workers," Working Papers 9928, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2000. "Occupational Mobility and Wage Inequality, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 04-026, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 15 Jun 2004. [Downloadable!]
  10. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2000. "12 Million Salaried Workers Are Missing," NBER Working Papers 8016, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Jeff Borland, 2000. "Economic Explanations of Earnings Distribution Trends in the International Literature and Application to New Zealand," Treasury Working Paper Series 00/16, New Zealand Treasury. [Downloadable!]
  12. repec:fth:prinin:466 is not listed on IDEAS
  13. Lawrence F. Katz, 1998. "Commentary : the distribution of income in industrialized countries," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 33-48. [Downloadable!]
  14. Neil Fligstein & Taek-Jin Shin, 2003. "The shareholder value society: A review of the changes in working conditions and inequality in the U.S., 1976-2000," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series 1026, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  15. Scott Stern, 1999. "Do Scientists Pay to Be Scientists?," NBER Working Papers 7410, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2005. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Re-Assessing the Revisionists," NBER Working Papers 11627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  17. Kambourov, Gueorgui & Manovskii, Iourii, 2004. "Occupational Mobility and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 1189, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  18. John Leeth & John Ruser, 2006. "Safety segregation: The importance of gender, race, and ethnicity on workplace risk," Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 123-152, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2007. "Long-Run Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure: Narrowing, Widening, Polarizing," NBER Working Papers 13568, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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