Abstract:
Two well-established findings are apparent in the analyses of individual wage determination: cross-section wage equations can account for less than half of the variance in earnings and there are large and persistent inter-industry wage differentials. We explore these two empirical regularities using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We show that around 90% of the variation in earnings can be explained by observed and " unobserved" individual characteristics. However, small - but statistically significant - industry wage premia do remain, and there is also a role for a rich set of job and workplace controls. Copyright 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics is edited by Christopher Adam, Anindya Banerjee, Christopher Bowdler, Gavin Cameron, David Hendry, Adriaan Kalwij, John Knight and Jonathan Temple