Using BLS data on 300 hospitals in 1985, the authors examine pay in four occupations, with a particular focus on the effect of supervision on the pay of nonsupervisory employees. There was a strong hospital-specific effect on wages that cut across occupations; thus, if a hospital paid relatively high wages to one occupation, it was likely to pay high wages to workers in other occupations as well. The inter-occupational pattern of the ratio of supervisors to staff, on the other hand, was much less uniform among hospitals. The wages of staff nurses tended to fall with the extent of supervision, suggesting that workers do not receive a compensating wage premium in return for closer supervision.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AkerlofGeorge, and YellenJanet. 1987. “The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis.” Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Berkeley.
2.
AokiMasahiko. 1984. The Co-Operative Game Theory of the Firm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3.
BulowJeremy, and SummersLawrence. 1986. “A Theory of Dual Labor Markets with Application to Industrial Policy, Discrimination, and Keynesian Unemployment.”Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 4, pp. 376–414.
4.
DickensWilliam, and KatzLawrence. 1986. “Industry and Occupation Wage Patterns and Theories of Wage Determination.” Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Berkeley.
5.
EbertsRandall. 1981. “An Empirical Investigation of Intra-Urban Wage Gradients.”Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 10, pp. 50–60.
6.
EhrenbergRonald. 1974. “Organizational Control and the Economic Efficiency of Hospitals: The Production of Nursing Services.”Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 9, pp. 21–32.
7.
GroshenErica. 1988. “Sources of Wage Dispersion: The Contribution of Inter-Employer Differentials Within Industry.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Working Paper 8802.
KochanThomas, and BarocciThomas. 1985. Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations. Boston: Little Brown.
10.
LeonardJonathan. 1987. “Carrots and Sticks: Pay, Supervision, and Turnover.”Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 5, pp. s136–s152.
11.
LesterRichard. 1952. “A Range Theory of Wage Differentials.”Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 5, pp. 483–499.
12.
MilkovichGeorge, and NewmanJ.. 1984. Compensation. Piano, Tex.: Business Publications.
13.
OdiorneGeorge. 1963. Personnel Policy: Issues and Practices. Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merrill Books.
14.
ShapiroCarl, and StiglitzJoseph. 1984. “Involuntary Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device.”American Economic Review, Vol. 74, pp. 433–44.
15.
ShultzGeorge P., and ReesAlbert. 1970. Workers and Wages in an Urban Labor Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
SullivanDaniel G.1987. “Estimates of Monopsony Power in the Market for Hospital Workers.” In “Three Empirical Studies of Firm Behavior in Imperfectly Competitive Markets.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University.
17.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1982. Industry Wage Survey: Hospitals. Bulletin 2142, December.
18.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1987. Industry Wage Survey: Hospitals. Bulletin 2273, February.
19.
TaylorJames. 1959. Personnel Administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.
