 Salary history bans and healing scars from past recessionsJoshua Mask () Labour Economics, 2023, vol. 84, issue C Abstract: In a recession, increased competition forces inexperienced job market entrants to accept lower wages than those who start their careers during an economic boom. Despite years of improvement in labor market conditions following a recession, a wage disparity, known as scarring, persists between these cohorts. Recently implemented Salary History Ban laws (SHBs) are intended to reduce wage disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. In this study, I test how these laws affect a unique and often less salient disadvantaged group – scarred workers. For scarred workers who began their careers during a moderate-to-severe recession, or a five percentage point higher state unemployment rate, I find SHBs increase job mobility by 0.6%, hourly wages by 2.65%, and weekly earnings by 5% relative to cohorts who graduated in baseline labor market conditions. These estimates represent a substantial reduction in the original scarring effect and provide a broader understanding of the mechanisms behind both scarring and SHB laws. Keywords: Wage scarring; Labor discrimination; Salary history bans (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:84:y:2023:i:c:s0927537123000830 DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102408 Access Statistics for this article Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier |
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