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Were Money Wages Always Rigid? A Look at the Reliability of Survey Evidence on Changes in Wage Rates
Author(s) -
O'Brien Anthony Patrick
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/0019-8676.00152
Subject(s) - wage , economics , labour economics , efficiency wage , survey data collection , state (computer science) , reliability (semiconductor) , computer science , statistics , mathematics , power (physics) , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics
In recent years, the once conventional view that nominal wage rates were much more flexible before the Great Depression than after has been challenged. This challenge has been reinforced by several recent studies that are based on monthly wage data gathered by state labor bureaus. The surveys used by the state labor bureaus in gathering the data appear to have been biased toward the finding that wages have not changed. Hence inferences drawn from the data collected in these surveys are not reliable.