Employer Size and Dual Labor Markets / James B. Rebitzer, Michael D. Robinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rebitzer, James B.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Robinson, Michael D.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w3587.

NBER working paper series no. w3587

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1991.

Summary:

Recently developed effort regulation models argue that labor markets are segmented because of differences in the technology of supervision across firms. primary jobs pay above market clearing wages because these jobs are difficult to monitor. Secondary jobs, in contrast, pose no monitoring difficulties and therefore pay a market clearing wage. If, as the literature suggests, increases in employer size make supervision more difficult, we should observe that wages increase with employer size in primary jobs but not in secondary jobs. We test this hypothesis using a switching regression model. We find evidence of an employer size wage effect in both primary and secondary labor markets. However, consistent with the prediction of effort control models, the size effect on wages is considerably larger in primary than secondary jobs.

Notes:

Print version record

January 1991.