NBER Publications by Rene Boeheim

Whereas there is widespread belief that workers in temporary help services (THS) are subject to poorer working conditions, in particular pay, than comparable workers in the rest of the economy, there is little evidence on whether that is driven by the sector per se or by the workers' characteristics. The first aim of this analysis is to quantify the wage penalty, if any, for workers in THS firms. Secondly, we analyze the wage profile of workers right before and after spells of THS. Linked employer-employee data for Portugal enable us to account for observable as well as unobservable worker quality. Our results show that workers in THS firms earn lower wages than their peers and that this difference is mostly due to the workers' characteristics. We estimate that workers in THS firms earn on...