62nd CARF Seminar: Pay Disclosure Laws and Employee Salary

Monday, May 19th, 2025 10:30 – 12:00（Pre-registration necessary)
※Language: English

We examine the impact of pay disclosure laws on employee salaries. Using a staggered adoption of several U.S. state-level laws requiring employers to provide salary information in job postings, we find that these laws lead to lower posted salaries for affected jobs relative to unaffected jobs. The negative effect is more pronounced among firms located in concentrated local labor markets and larger firms, but it is weaker for positions with annual salary contracts and professional certification requirements. Consistent with the public salary disclosure facilitating tacit coordination among peer firms, we observe a decline in variations in posted salaries within the same local labor market and occupational category following the pay disclosure laws. Furthermore, we utilize salary expense data from banks and find a consistent decline in average salaries following the pay disclosure laws. Our findings highlight employers’ strategic use of public salary disclosure in labor markets, with policy implications for the costs of salary disclosure regulations.