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Cited by 596

The DOI matches its Crossref record.

Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market

Brown, Charles·1980·The Quarterly Journal of Economics
DOI 10.2307/1884607
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Abstract

The theory of equalizing differences asserts that workers receive compensating wage premiums when they accept jobs with undesirable nonwage characteristics, holding the worker's characteristics constant. Previous research provides only inconsistent support for the theory, with wrong-signed or insignificant estimates of these wage premiums fairly common. An oft-cited reason for these anomalies is that important characteristics of the worker remain unmeasured, biasing the estimates. In this paper, longitudinal data are used to test this conjecture. Although such data improve the control for worker characteristics, the plausibility of the estimates is not markedly improved. Alternative explanations for these results are considered. “It's indoor work and no heavy lifting.” —Senator Robert Dole, explaining why he wanted to be Vice President.

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Metadata

Authors
Brown, C.
Venue
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
1980-02
Volume
94
Issue
1
Pages
113
ISSN
0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2307/1884607
OpenAlex
W1997543237
Cited by
596
References
0
FWCI
29.74
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/1884607
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Brown, C. (1980). Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. https://doi.org/10.2307/1884607

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Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.