IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v48y1988i02p387-399_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wage Determination Theory and the Five-Dollar Day at Ford

Author

Listed:
  • Raff, Daniel M.G.

Abstract

This paper examines the five-dollar day compensation policy instituted by the Ford Motor Company in 1914 in light of recent developments in wage-determination theory. The new wage was above the opportunity cost of the labor employed. Yet various efficiency wage theories, by which high wages increase output, are shown to provide an implausible explanation. The particular (and epochal) technical change that occurred at Ford and the attitudes and beliefs of relevant actors suggest instead a rent-sharing theory driven by the threat of collective action by labor. This confluence, not the money, marks the episode as a watershed.

Suggested Citation

  • Raff, Daniel M.G., 1988. "Wage Determination Theory and the Five-Dollar Day at Ford," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 387-399, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:48:y:1988:i:02:p:387-399_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700004988/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Claudia Goldin, 1994. "Labor Markets in the Twentieth Century," NBER Historical Working Papers 0058, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Boyer, Robert, 2001. "La "nouvelle économie" au futur antérieur : histoire, théories, géographie," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 0113, CEPREMAP.
    3. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 1992. "Les contrats auto-exécutoires et la théorie des institutions du marché du travail," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 68(3), pages 433-451, septembre.
    4. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Flynn, Sean, 2005. "Why only some industries unionize: insights from reciprocity theory," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 99-120, June.
    6. Flynn, Sean Masaki & Donnelly, Michael, 2012. "Does labor contract completeness drive unionization? Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 445-454.
    7. Katarzyna Budnik, 2012. "Do those who stay work less? On the impact of emigration on the measured TFP in Poland," NBP Working Papers 113, Narodowy Bank Polski.
    8. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1998. "Motivation and Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 388-411, June.
    9. Robert Boyer & André Orléan, 1991. "Les transformations des conventions salariales entre théorie et histoire : d'Henry Ford au fordisme," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 42(2), pages 233-272.
    10. Boyer, Robert & Freyssenet, Michel, 2002. "Entre innovations historiques et contraintes structurelles Eléments d'une théorie des modèles productifs," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 0205, CEPREMAP.
    11. Christopher Hanes, 2000. "Nominal Wage Rigidity and Industry Characteristics in the Downturns of 1893, 1929, and 1981," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1432-1446, December.
    12. Massimiliano Vatiero, 2023. "Extending Amartya Sen’s Paretian Liberal Paradox to a Firm’s Hierarchy," DEM Working Papers 2023/3, Department of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:48:y:1988:i:02:p:387-399_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.