Firm Size, Technical Change, and Wages in the Pork Sector, 1990-2005

Abstract

This study investigates worker shares of the returns to scale and returns to technology adoption on U.S. hog farms. The wage analysis controls for a matching process by which workers are linked to farms of different sizes and technology uses. Using four surveys of employees on hog farms collected in 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005, we find persistent large wage premiums are paid to workers on larger farms and on technologically advanced farms that remain large and statistically significant even after controlling for differences in observable worker attributes and in the observed sorting process of workers across farms.

Keywords

• economies of scale
• firm size
• hogs
• propensity score matching
• technology
• wage premiums