Pay

Abstract

In Chapter 2, ‘The Market for Labour’, there was considerable discussion of how pay is determined and why pay differences emerge. Economists have notions of net advantages based on the proposition that work implies disutility — some level of dissatisfaction arising from the constraints placed on our freedom by having to go to work and by having to expend effort. In addition, when we are at work we may have to perform tedious, monotonous or dangerous tasks. There is also the belief that someone benefits from what we do and that we ought to benefit in return.