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Maria Stanfors. Photo.

Maria Stanfors

Professor

Maria Stanfors. Photo.

Estimating historical wage profiles

Author

  • Maria Stanfors
  • Joyce Burnette

Summary, in English

In this article, researchers evaluate the empirical performance of the Mincer earnings equation, which has been the benchmark model for assessment of wage profiles since 1974. The analysis concerns workers in the manufacturing industry in three countries before 1900. The Mincer equation must be adjusted with respect to functional form in order to capture the wage profiles of past industrial workers. The quadratic spline consistently provides the best fit, while the standard quadratic produces misleading estimates of wage changes and gender wage gaps. These conclusions hold across contexts, for men and women, and for both age and experience profiles. The results have methodological relevance for estimating historical wage profiles and also have implications for the assessment of gender wage gaps in the past.

Department/s

  • Centre for Economic Demography
  • Department of Economic History

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

35-51

Publication/Series

Historical Methods

Volume

48

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Heldref Publications

Topic

  • Economic History

Keywords

  • manufacturing industry
  • Mincer earnings function
  • nineteenth century
  • wage profiles

Status

Published

Project

  • The Emergence of Wage Discrimination
  • The Emergence of Wage Discrimination: Gender wage differentials before the modern labor market (IFAU)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0161-5440