On Compensation for Risk Aversion and Skewness Affection in Wages

This paper presents extensive empirical testing of the hypothesis that greater post-schooling earnings risk requires higher expected returns. Expanding on this notion, on the basis of utility theory, we predict that workers not only care about risk but also about the skewness in the distribution of the compensation paid: workers exhibit risk aversion and skewness affection. To test these hypotheses, this paper carefully develops various measures of risk and skewness by occupational/educational classification of the worker and finds supportive evidence: wages rise with occupational earnings variance and decrease with skewness. In order to identify the discount rate and the degree of risk aversion, we also apply structural modelling of education and occupational choice and allow for non-lognormal wage distributions.