The Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply: A Synthesis of Empirical Estimates

Abstract

This paper performs a meta-analysis of empirical estimates of uncompensated labour supply elasticities. For the Netherlands, we find that an elasticity of 0.5 for women and 0.1 for men is a good reflection of what the literature reveals. The elasticity for men hardly differs between countries, but for women some cross-country variation is found. The increasing participation rate of women may lead to a somewhat lower elasticity in the future. Both the specification of the hours function and the estimation method are found to affect elasticity estimates.