Firm Pay, Amenities, and Inequality
Working Paper 35149
DOI 10.3386/w35149
Issue Date
We estimate firm-specific amenity valuations using discrete choice experiments embedded in a large-scale survey of German workers linked to administrative records. Workers rank hypothetical offers from real firms they would consider joining, with randomized wages identifying money-metric valuations. Valuations vary substantially across firms and demographic groups, yet a single index performs surprisingly well. Valuations are approximately orthogonal to firm wage premia; they therefore do not offset between-firm wage inequality. However, male-female differences in amenity valuations explain part of the gender wage gap.
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Copy CitationSydnee Caldwell, Ingrid Haegele, and Jörg Heining, "Firm Pay, Amenities, and Inequality," NBER Working Paper 35149 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35149.Download Citation