Downloads
wp0922.pdf
PDF | 467.5 KB
<p><p>We examine the wage patterns of Canadian less skilled male workers over the last quarter century by organizing workers into job entry cohorts. We find entry wages for successive cohorts declined until 1997, and then began to recover. Wage profiles steepened for cohorts entering after 1997, but not for cohorts entering in the 1980s - a period when start wages were relatively high. We argue that these patterns are consistent with a model of implicit contracts with recontracting in which a worker's current wage is determined by the best labour market conditions experienced during the current job spell.</p></p>
Authors
Research Fellow University of British Colombia
David is a Research Fellow of the IFS and a Professor in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia.
James Townsend
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2009.0922
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Green, D and Townsend, J. (2009). Understanding the wage patterns of Canadian less skilled workers: the role of implicit contracts. London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/understanding-wage-patterns-canadian-less-skilled-workers-role-implicit-contracts (accessed: 11 May 2024).
More from IFS
Understand this issue
If you can’t see it, you can’t be it: role models influence female junior doctors’ choice of medical specialty
24 April 2024
Sure Start achieved its aims, then we threw it away
15 April 2024
The NHS waiting list: when will it come down?
29 February 2024
Policy analysis
The short- and medium-term impacts of Sure Start on educational outcomes
9 April 2024
Sure Start greatly improved disadvantaged children’s GCSE results
9 April 2024
Recent trends in public sector pay
26 March 2024
Academic research
Labour market inequality and the changing life cycle profile of male and female wages
15 April 2024
Interpreting cohort profiles of lifecycle earnings volatility
15 April 2024
There and back again: women’s marginal commuting costs
2 April 2024