Piece Rates and Workplace Injury: Does Survey Evidence Support Adam Smith?

Keith Bender, Colin Green () and John Heywood

No 609288, Working Papers from Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department

Abstract: While piece rates are routinely associated with greater productivity and higher wages, they may also generate unanticipated effects. This paper uses cross-country European data to provide among the first broad survey evidence of a strong link between piece rates and workplace injury. Despite unusually good controls for workplace hazards, job characteristics and worker effort, workers on piece rates suffer a large 5 percentage point greater likelihood of injury. As injury rates are typically not controlled for when estimating the premium to piece rates, this raises the specter that a portion of the return to piece rates reflects a compensating wage differential for risk of injury.

Date: 2010
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Related works:
Journal Article: Piece rates and workplace injury: Does survey evidence support Adam Smith? (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lan:wpaper:609288

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