IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tra/jlabre/v24y2003i4p683-694.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Did Henry Ford Mean to Pay Efficiency Wages?

Author

Listed:
  • JASON E. TAYLOR*

Abstract

In the past two decades economists have developed efficiency wage theories, which suggest a link between wage rates and worker productivity, while attempting to explain the existence of involuntary unemployment in equilibrium labor markets. Henry Ford’s 1914 announcement of the five-dollar day, an overnight doubling of wage rates, is regularly used as the textbook application of efficiency wage theories put into practice. While previous research demonstrates that the effects of the five-dollar day were largely consistent with those predicted by efficiency wage theories, Ford’s wage policy was principally motivated by the fallacious wage-aggregate demand link expressed by the so-called “high-wage doctrine” — a belief that many economists claim significantly contributed to the unemployment problem of the 1930s. In addition to exploring Ford’s high-wage motives, I discuss the role Ford’s wage statements and policies played in the acceptance and implementation of high-wage public policies during the Great Depression.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason E. Taylor*, 2003. "Did Henry Ford Mean to Pay Efficiency Wages?," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 24(4), pages 683-694, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:tra:jlabre:v:24:y:2003:i:4:p:683-694
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://transactionpub.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=2W5WT14QRNHT6F13
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Magruder, Jeremy R., 2013. "Can minimum wages cause a big push? Evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 48-62.
    2. Yang, Sheng-Ping & DeBeaumont, Ronald, 2010. "Pay as incentive or pay as reward? The case of Taiwan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 76-86, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tra:jlabre:v:24:y:2003:i:4:p:683-694. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://transactionpub.metapress.com/link.asp?target=journal&id=110581 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.