Wages and hazardous working conditions

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1986

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new empirical test for the existence of wage premiums paid to workers who are exposed to dangerous or unhealthy working conditions. Prior empirical studies have encountered problems with omitted ability data, omitted working conditions data and measurement error. The empirical model presented in this paper uses a difference specification to eliminate bias from omitted ability data. By assuming that all hazardous working conditions are measured by a single endogenous unobserved variable, this empirical model also eliminates bias due to omitted working conditions and measurement error. The empirical model is estimated using the 1973-7 version of the Quality of Employment Survey. The unique data in this survey facilitate estimation of a model in which working conditions are assumed to be unobservable. Using a two-stage technique for consistent and efficient estimation, the empirical results reported in this paper show that a compensating difference for hazardous work does exist. © 1986, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Applied Economics

First Page Number

819

Last Page Number

827

DOI

10.1080/00036848600000042

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