TY  - JOUR
AU  - Leamer, Edward E
AU  - Thornberg, Christopher
TI  - Efforts and Wages:  A New Look at the Inter-Industry Wage Differentials
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6626
PY  - 1998
Y2  - June 1998
DO  - 10.3386/w6626
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6626
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6626.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward E. Leamer
John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management
UCLA
Box 951481
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
Tel: 310/206-1452
Fax: 310/825-4011
E-Mail: edward.leamer@anderson.ucla.edu

Christopher Thornberg
UCLA
E-Mail: cthornbe@anderson.ucla.edu
M1  - published as Edward E. Leamer, Christopher F. Thornberg. "Effort and Wages: A New Look at the Interindustry Wage Differentials  ," in Robert C. Feenstra, editor, "The Impact of International Trade on Wages" University of Chicago Press (2000)

AB  - We provide evidence that US workers face a wage-effort offer curve with the high-wage high-effort jobs occurring in the capital intensive sectors.  We find that real wage offers rose at every level of effort during the 1960's, a shift which is consistent with a decline in the rental cost of capital.  During the 1970's, when relative prices of labor-intensive goods declined, the wage-effort offer curve twisted, offering lower pay for the low-paid jobs in the labor-intensive sectors but higher pay for the high-paid jobs in the capital-intensive sectors.  In the 1980's, workers at every wage level began to work more hours for the same weekly wage.  This we loosely attribute either to the increasing cost of non-wage benefits, especially health care, or to the introduction of new equipment.  In studying the wage-effort offer curve rate of unionization, education, and rent sharing.
ER  -