Inter-industry Wage Differences and Individual Heterogeneity

Two well-established findings are apparent in the analyses of individual wage determination: cross-section wage equations can account for less than half of the variance in earnings and there are large and persistent inter-industry wage differentials. We explore these two empirical regularities using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). We show that around 90% of the variation in earnings can be explained by observed and unobserved individual characteristics. However, small – but statistically significant – industry wage premia do remain, and there is also a role for a rich set of job and workplace controls.