SUPERVISION AND WAGES ACROSS INDUSTRIES

This paper uses supervision data from a supplement to the 1977 wave of the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics to examine differences in supervision and wages across industries and to evaluate relationships between supervision practices and inter-industry wage differentials. The results demonstrate that workers in high-wage industries are supervised with equal or greater stringency than secondary sector workers. Further, the results offer no evidence that interindustry differences in monitoring contribute to inter-industry wage differentials, Such findings appear to contradict explanations for industry wage premiums that are motivated by efficiency wage models of shirking.