• AEA in the news
  • June 14, 2016

Government 'Sunshine List' will drive wages up, productivity down says university prof

CBC News cited a 2012 American Economic Review study in a discussion of a proposed public listing of government workers’ salaries in Newfoundland and Labrador. In Inequality at Work: The Effect of Peer Salaries on Job Satisfaction, the authors survey employees at the University of California who were notified about a new website that listed salaries for university employees. Workers with below-average salaries for their occupation reported lower job satisfaction and more inclination to find a new job, while workers with above-average pay were not correspondingly more satisfied or less likely to search for a new job.