Why do some occupations pay more than others? Social closure and earnings inequality in the United States
A note on social responsibility and stock valuation
H Russell Fogler, Fred Nutt
Academy of Management Journal 18 (1), 155-160, 1975
Abstract The article discusses social responsibility and stock valuation. An empirical study was made of investors valuation of nine paper companies after substantial publicity was released about their pollution tendencies. Cross-section valuation models were prepared for the four quarters beginning just prior to the publicity. Both institutional purchases and price changes were analyzed to determine the impact of undesirable publicity. The authors look at a correlation between profitability and good pollution control.
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Why do some occupations pay more than others? Social closure and earnings inequality in the United States
Kim A Weeden
American Journal of Sociology 108 (1), 55-101, 2002
This article elaborates and evaluates the neo-Weberian notion of social closure to investigate positional inequality in the United States. It argues that social and legal barriers around occupations raise the rewards of their members by restricting the labor supply, enhancing diffuse demand, channeling demand, or signaling a particular quality of service. Hypotheses derived from the closure perspective are evaluated using new data that map five institutionalized closure devices—licensing, educational credentialing, voluntary certification, association representation, and unionization—onto 488 occupations. Results from multilevel models demonstrate that closure practices, particularly those that generate tangible restrictions on the labor supply, shape the contemporary structure of occupational earnings. Returns to these strategies vary across occupations but are not tightly linked to the complexity of the occupation's knowledge base. If suitably elaborated, closure theory thus offers a promising complement to individualistic explanations of earnings inequality.