The elusive wage-benefit trade-off: The case of employer-provided health insurance

B-Tier
Journal: International Journal of Industrial Organization
Year: 2014
Volume: 37
Issue: C
Pages: 23-37

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

1.009 = (α=2.02 / 2 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

This study shows that standard regressions estimated to measure a trade-off between wages and health insurance are misspecified by insufficiently accounting for establishment and firm size; an interactive, size-corrected specification is more likely to reveal a trade-off. Furthermore, because insurance decisions are typically made by firms, and wages set by establishments, the insurance constraint on establishments in multi-establishment firms weakens the trade-off. We use model-generated data to show that both factors contribute to the failure in previous research to identify a trade-off, and data from a cross section of Northern Californian establishments to test for a trade-off in multi-establishment and single-establishment firms.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:indorg:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:23-37
Journal Field
Industrial Organization
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25