Title

Preferences, Comparative Advantage, and Compensating Wage Differentials for Job Routinization

Author(s)

Climent Quintana-Domeque Climent Quintana-Domeque (Princeton University)

Abstract

I attempt to explain why compensating differentials for job disamenities are difficult to observe. I focus on the match between workers? preferences for routine jobs and the variability in tasks associated with the job. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, I find that mismatched workers report lower job satisfaction and earn lower wages. Both male and female workers in routinized jobs earn, on average, 12% less than their counterparts in non-routinized jobs. Once preferences and mismatch are accounted for, this difference decreases to 8% for men and 5% for women. Accounting for mismatch is important when analyzing compensating differentials.

Creation Date

2008-05

Section URL ID

IRS

Paper Number

525

URL

https://dataspace.princeton.edu/bitstream/88435/dsp01x920fw86t/1/525.pdf

File Function

Jel

J30, J31

Keyword(s)

wage differentials, preferences, job attributes, routine tasks, mismatch

Suppress

false

Series

1