24
with Krueger (1991), the authors find a statistically significant negative effect of the
public policy exception on wages, suggesting that workers pay for the attenuation of at-
will in one of the two categories deemed important by Krueger in generating proposals
for an unjust dismissal statute. Consistent with Autor (2003), the authors find no
reduction in wages associated with the implied contract exception and a small negative
effect on employment (which adverse effect is strongest for less-educated males and
younger workers).
8. In addition to safety regulation and workers’ compensation, states also successfully
introduced legislation limiting the hours of children and women. The laws seemingly had
little independent impact, the main influence behind observed reductions in hours being
technology (e.g. Goldin, 1990) In reviewing this literature, Fishback (1997, pp. 45)
speculates that among the prime movers were those firms who had earlier most reduced
their child labor and male-intensive industries respectively.
9. Progressive era reformers also figure in Fishback’s model, and are depicted as seeking
to impose reforms on larger employers.
10. And even in these states most employers choose voluntary coverage so as to limit
their liability
11. Why the very lowest paid union workers are unaffected by the ordinances is
something of a puzzle.
12. Stigler (1970) and Heller (1986) contend - but do not test the argument - that federal
minimum wages introduced under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 were
passed by the Congressional majority of northern states, wherein the envisaged minima
were generally exceeded, so as to extinguish low-wage competition from the southern
states who voted against the legislation. The raising rivals’ costs argument is more
transparent in the case of prevailing wage legislation. In justifying the first draft of the
bill in 1927, Congressman Bacon stated:
“The Government is engaged in building in my district a Veteran’s Bureau hospital ...
Several New York contractors bid, and in their bids, of course, they had to take into
consideration the high labor standards prevailing in the State of New York ... The bid,
however, was let to a firm from Alabama who had brought several thousand non-union
laborers from Alabama into Long Island, N.Y., into my district. They were herded onto
this job, they were housed in shacks they were paid a very low wage, and the work
proceeded . It seemed to me that the federal Government should not engage in