American Employer Salary Surveys and Labor Economics Research: Issues and Contributions

Abstract

I review the uses of American employer salary surveys for labor market research. Recent computational, theoretical, and econometric advances render these surveys ripe for exploitation. I summarize theories of employer wage effects and then describe salary surveys and their preparation for analysis. Then, the surveys and the methodological issues they raise are contrasted with household data. Finally, I summarize the techniques used and contributions made in some salary survey-based studies.