IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v54y2001i2p259-274.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevailing Wage Laws and Construction Laborc Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel P. Kessler
  • Lawrence F. Katz

Abstract

Prevailing wage laws, which require that construction workers employed by private contractors on public projects be paid wages and benefits at least equal to those “prevailing†for similar work in or near the locality in which the project is located, have been the focus of an extensive policy debate. The authors, analyzing Current Population Survey data and Census data, find that the relative wages of construction workers decline slightly after the repeal of a state prevailing wage law. However, the small overall impact of law repeal masks substantial differences in outcomes for different groups of construction employees. Repeal is associated with a sizable reduction in the union wage premium and an appreciable narrowing of the black/non-black wage differential for construction workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel P. Kessler & Lawrence F. Katz, 2001. "Prevailing Wage Laws and Construction Laborc Markets," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2), pages 259-274, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:54:y:2001:i:2:p:259-274
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390105400204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390105400204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390105400204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ashenfelter, Orley, 1972. "Racial Discrimination and Trade Unionism," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(3), pages 435-464, May-June.
    2. Steven G. Allen, 1987. "Can Union Labor Ever Cost Less?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 347-373.
    3. Allen, Steven G, 1983. "Much Ado about Davis-Bacon: A Critical Review and New Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 707-736, October.
    4. Robert S. Goldfarb & John F. Morrall III, 1981. "The Davis-Bacon Act: An Appraisal of Recent Studies," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(2), pages 191-206, January.
    5. Steven G. Allen, 1986. "Can Union Labor Ever Cost Less?," NBER Working Papers 2019, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. D. N. Gujarati, 1967. "The Economics of the Davis-Bacon Act," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40, pages 303-303.
    7. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Jacobs, Ken & McBride, Justin & Smith, Rebecca, 2021. "State and Local Policies and Sectoral Labor Standards: From Individual Rights to Collective Power," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt9kt2b751, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Wainwright, Jon, 2005. "An Analysis of the Impact of Affirmative Action Programs on Self-Employment in the Construction Industry," IZA Discussion Papers 1856, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Blanchflower, David G., 2007. "Entrepreneurship in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 3130, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. David Neumark, 2004. "Living Wages: Protection for or Protection from Low-Wage Workers?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(1), pages 27-51, October.
    5. Ken Jacobs & Rebecca Smith & Justin McBride, 2021. "State and Local Policies and Sectoral Labor Standards: From Individual Rights to Collective Power," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(5), pages 1132-1154, October.
    6. Giuseppe Bertola & Francine Blau & Lawrence Kahn, 2007. "Labor market institutions and demographic employment patterns," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 833-867, October.
    7. David Blanchflower, 2009. "Minority self-employment in the United States and the impact of affirmative action programs," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 361-396, June.
    8. Mark W. Nichols & Mehmet Serkan Tosun & Jingjing Yang, 2015. "The Fiscal Impact of Legalized Casino Gambling," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(6), pages 739-761, November.
    9. Addison, John T., 2006. "Politico-Economic Causes of Labor Regulation in the United States: Rent Seeking, Alliances, Raising Rivals' Costs (Even Lowering One's Own?), and Interjurisdictional Competition," IZA Discussion Papers 2381, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Eunice S. Han, 2023. "The effect of changes in public sector bargaining laws on teacher union membership," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 133-158, March.
    11. Sarah Bohn & Emily Greene Owens, 2012. "Immigration and Informal Labor," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 845-873, October.
    12. Greenberg, Michael & Mantell, Nancy & Lahr, Michael & Frisch, Michael & White, Keith & Kehler, David, 2005. "Evaluating the economic effects of a new state-funded school building program: the prevailing wage issue," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 33-45.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kevin Duncan & Peter Philips & Mark Prus, 2006. "Prevailing wage legislation and public school construction efficiency: a stochastic frontier approach," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(6), pages 625-634.
    2. Carlos Lamarche, 2013. "Industry-wide work rules and productivity: evidence from Argentine union contract data," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-25, December.
    3. Addison, John T. & Chilton, John B., 1993. "Can We Identify Union Productivity Effects?," MPRA Paper 83134, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Kevin Duncan & Peter Philips & Mark J. Prus, 2001. "Fair Wage Policy and Construction Costs in British Columbia," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 01-11, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    5. Maria De Paola & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2010. "Peer group effects on the academic performance of Italian students," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(17), pages 2203-2215.
    6. Salimata Sissoko, 2011. "Working Paper 03-11 - Niveau de décentralisation de la négociation et structure des salaires," Working Papers 1103, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    7. Stephen Drinkwater, 2003. "Go West? Assessing the willingness to move from Central and Eastern European Countries," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0503, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    8. Manthos D. Delis & Sotirios Kokas & Steven Ongena, 2016. "Foreign Ownership and Market Power in Banking: Evidence from a World Sample," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 449-483, March.
    9. Giuseppe Croce & Emanuela Ghignoni, 2011. "Overeducation and spatial flexibility in Italian local labour markets," Working Papers in Public Economics 145, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    10. Thomas Crossley & Mario Jametti, 2013. "Pension Benefit Insurance and Pension Plan Portfolio Choice," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 337-341, March.
    11. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald, 1995. "International Wage Curves," NBER Chapters, in: Differences and Changes in Wage Structures, pages 145-174, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer & Florian Mayneris, 2008. "Spatial Concentration and Firm-Level Productivity in France," Sciences Po publications 6858, Sciences Po.
    13. Sylvain Chassang & Erik Snowberg & Ben Seymour & Cayley Bowles, 2015. "Accounting for Behavior in Treatment Effects: New Applications for Blind Trials," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    14. Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2023. "Wage differences according to workers' origin: The role of working more upstream in GVCs," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(2), pages 319-342, June.
    15. Nucci, Francesco & Pozzolo, Alberto Franco, 2010. "The exchange rate, employment and hours: What firm-level data say," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 112-123, November.
    16. David Campbell, 2001. "Rates of Return to Schooling and the Quality of Education in England and Wales," Studies in Economics 0115, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    17. Ose, Solveig Osborg, 2005. "Working conditions, compensation and absenteeism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 161-188, January.
    18. Gijs Roelofs & Daniel Vuuren, 2017. "The Decentralization of Social Assistance and the Rise of Disability Insurance Enrolment," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-21, March.
    19. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    20. Nattavudh Powdthavee, 2005. "Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 72(287), pages 531-547, August.

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:54:y:2001:i:2:p:259-274. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.