Unobserved Ability, Efficiency Wages, and Interindustry Wage Differentials

Download or read book Unobserved Ability, Efficiency Wages, and Interindustry Wage Differentials written by McKinley L. Blackburn and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interindustry wage differentials in wage regressions estimated for individuals have been interpreted as evidence consistent with efficiency wage models. A principal competing explanation is that these differentials are generated by differences across workers in unobserved ability. This paper tests the unobserved ability hypothesis .by incorporating test scores into standard wage regressions as error-ridden indicators of unobserved ability. The results indicate that differences in unobserved ability explain relatively little of interindustry or interoccupation wage differentials.