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Title: Employment and Earnings Effects of Drug Use: Discussion by the Authors
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Gill, Andrew Matthew
Michaels, Robert J.
Employment and Earnings Effects of Drug Use: Discussion by the Authors
Industrial and Labor Relations Review 45,3 (April 1992): 449-451.
Also: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2524271
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Drug Use; Earnings; Employment; Endogeneity; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Substance Use; Wage Levels; Wage Models

In Does Drug Use Lower Wages?, Andrew M. Gill and Robert J. Michaels examine the effects of drug use on wages and employment, based on microdata from the 1980 and 1984 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey. In contrast to previous research, these findings indicate that, if an allowance is made for self-selection effects, drug users actually received higher wages than nonusers. Another surprising finding is that, while all drug users as a sample population had lower employment levels than nonusers, users of hard drugs did not. In Labor Market Effects of Marijuana and Cocaine Use among Men, Charles A. Register uses data from the 1984 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 12,686 respondents) to examine the hypothesis that drug use reduces labor market productivity, as measured by wages. Controlling for the probability of employment and the endogeneity of drug use, it is found that, although long-term and on-the-job use of marijuana negatively affects wages, the net productivity effect for all marijuana users is positive. It is concluded that no statistically significant association exists between cocaine use and productivity. In Employment and Earnings Effects of Drug Use, Discussion by the Authors Gill and Michaels discuss questions left unanswered by Register and Williams, e.g., how drug use might reduce employment and the long-term labor market effects of drug use, and explore future research strategies to estimate fixed-effects specifications of the drug use-earnings relationship. Register and Williams comment on the consistency between their findings and those of Gill and Michaels, but also point out differences, including their divergent methodological styles, Gill's and Michaels's inclusion of women in their study, and different definitions of drug use. Policy implications are briefly discussed. (Copyright 1992, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.)
Bibliography Citation
Gill, Andrew Matthew and Robert J. Michaels. "Employment and Earnings Effects of Drug Use: Discussion by the Authors." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 45,3 (April 1992): 449-451.