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Interregional Wage Differentials in the United States: A Survey

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Migration and Labor Market Adjustment

Abstract

Over forty years ago, Klarman (1943) argued that income differences between regions could be explained fully by variations in community size and other factors that distinguish workers and working conditions. Nevertheless, most subsequent empirical investigations have concluded not only that there are substantial interregional differences in real wages earned by similar workers, but also that these differences have persisted over comparatively long periods of time (Easterlin, 1961) and have been unresponsive to migration flows (Borts, 1960). In fact, Klarman’s argument was at one point labelled an “extreme view” by Fuchs and Perlman (1960) and Hanushek (1981, p. 241) observed that “... virtually every micro-data human capital study of schooling-earnings relationships that allows regional variation (through regional dummy variables or stratification) finds significant differences .. . .” More recent evidence, however, supports Klarman’s original finding. For example, Gerking and Weirick (1983), Farber and Newman (1987), and Dickie and Gerking (1987) demonstrate that interregional differences in average wages result primarily from aggregating heterogeneous labor types and that returns to labor market characteristics are geographically invariant.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, USA

    Mark Dickie

  2. University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA

    Shelby Gerking

Authors
  1. Mark Dickie
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  2. Shelby Gerking
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Jouke Van Dijk

  2. Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Hendrik Folmer

  3. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Henry W. Herzog Jr.  & Alan M. Schlottmann  & 

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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Dickie, M., Gerking, S. (1989). Interregional Wage Differentials in the United States: A Survey. In: Van Dijk, J., Folmer, H., Herzog, H.W., Schlottmann, A.M. (eds) Migration and Labor Market Adjustment. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7846-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7846-2_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-015-7848-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-7846-2

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