The Human Capital Value of OOP

If object-oriented programmers are more productive than other programmers, they should be paid more, assuming that wages are determined based on the value of a worker’s marginal productivity. The human capital model is used to assess the current salary premiums of programmers who know object-oriented programming (OOP). While the human capital model employed quantifies this premium, it also controls for the effects of different amounts of technical experience and different levels of education (highest attained degree) that the programmers possess. Using two samples, the incremental value of OOP skills is shown to be about the same over the two different time periods (2000/2001 and 2003).