Experimental Design
The experimental design aims at identifying the workers’ WTP pay for the job attribute firm training. Additionally, we plan to analyze workers' willingness to pay for job attributes other than firm training. The key features of the experimental design follows Maestas et al. (2023).
Each respondent participates in five stated-preference experiments. In each experiment, survey respondents are asked to select between two jobs (A and B), each defined by a partially varying set of job attributes and wages.
For each respondent, we defined a baseline job around which job attributes would vary. The baseline job was the respondent’s current job in order to generate hypothetical jobs that would appear realistic to the respondent. For this purpose, the respondents were asked about their current occupation, job attributes and wage prior to the discrete choice experiment. To make the hypothetical jobs more realistic, the occupation of the job never varied and was set to the current occupation of the respondent while the remaining six job attributes varied when selected and the wage always varied. In the following, we describe how we create the variation.
Starting from the respondent’s baseline job, we create hypothetical Job A and Job B by randomly selecting two non-wage attributes to vary across the two hypothetical jobs. Within each of the two randomly selected attributes, attribute values are chosen at random sequentially, first for Job A and then for Job B without replacement.
While the non-wage attributes vary only when selected, the offered wage always varies
randomly across Job A and Job B. To achieve variation in the monthly wage, we proceed as follows:
I. Prior to the discrete choice experiment, respondents are asked to indicate their monthly net wage and their working hours. We calculate the hourly wage from this information.
II. The hourly wage is then multiplied by a randomly drawn weight from a normal distribution with mean 1 and standard deviation .1 (truncation of weights at 0.75 and 1.25).
III. If the hourly wage falls below the minimum wage, it is set to the minimum wage.
IV. The wage is then converted back to a monthly wage: we multiply the hourly wage with the (randomly varying) working time shown in the job offer and with 4.3 (weeks).
To increase statistical power, we avoid generating dominating jobs. A dominating job offers flexibility, job security and a higher wage than the other job. In this case, we switch the wages of the two jobs.
In every job choice, respondents see two jobs next to each other where two randomly selected job attributes and the monthly wage vary. Those three attributes are marked in red and all the other job attributes are the same as in their current job. The respondents were asked to select “Strongly Prefer Job A,” “Prefer Job A,” “Prefer Job B,” or “Strongly Prefer Job B.”
For the job attributes, the mapping from the survey questions to the discrete choice characteristics is as follows:
Firm Training:
“How many whole hours have you spent on firm training in the last 12 months?”
Mapping for DC attribute: “Firm training opportunities”
○ If <80 h: Without firm training opportunities
○ If >=80 h: With firm training opportunities
Flexibility:
“There are very different working time arrangements. Which of the following is most likely to apply to your work?
a) Fixed working hours
b) Flexitime (with or without core working hours)
c) Trust-based working hours
Mapping for DC attribute: “Start and end of work”
- If a) : Set by the company
- If b) or c): Free choice
Autonomy:
“How much freedom do you have in determining your work tasks and the way in which you carry out these tasks?
- little freedom
- a lot of freedom”
Mapping for DC attribute: “Work tasks”
- little freedom = little freedom
- a lot of freedom = a lot of freedom
Security:
“Do you have a fixed-term or permanent employment contract?
- Fixed-term employment contract
- Permanent employment contract“
Mapping for DC: “Employment contract”
- permanent = permanent
- fixed-term = fixed-term
Working Time:
How many hours are your contractually agreed working hours per week?
Mapping for DC: “Weekly working time in hours”
- Same integer as indicated, added up with: [-10,-5,0,5,10]
Leadership:
How much do you agree with the following statement? I have leadership responsibility in my current job.
Mapping for DC attribute: “Leadership responsibilities”
- I strongly agree, I somewhat agree = Yes
- Neither, I somewhat disagree, strongly disagree = No
We use the WTP for leadership responsibilities as a pilot for an unrelated project investigating gender differences in this job attribute.
Reference: Maestas, Nicole, Kathleen J. Mullen, David Powell, Till von Wachter, and Jeffrey B. Wenger. 2023. "The Value of Working Conditions in the United States and the Implications for the Structure of Wages." American Economic Review, 113 (7): 2007-47.