An official website of the United States government
United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information,
make sure you're on a federal government site.
The site is secure.
The
https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any
information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Office of Survey Methods Research
SHARE ON:
More Information
Published Year: 1996
Survey/Program(s): Office of Compensation and Working Conditions
Catalog: Economic Working Paper
WP Number: WP-297
Publication Status / Disposition: Available from the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions (September 1996).
Download PDF
Constructing Interarea Compensation Cost Indexes With Data from Multiple Surveys
Abstract
We compare the cost of labor input for 39 areas of the United States using Tornqvist multilateral (transitive) place to place index numbers incorporating characteristics-based, hedonic labor composition adjustment as an integral feature. Our composition adjustments are based on establishment data at the level of the approximately 18,000 jobs priced in the Employment Cost Index (ECI) survey, and worker data at the level of the 39 areas in the ECI sample from the Current Population Survey. We find that the compensation parities prior to labor composition adjustment are generally more variable from place to place than after adjustment, and that the primary determinants of geographical compensation variations after controlling for industry and occupation are firm size and unionization from the establishment data, and education/experience form the worker data.