This article studies the role of reliability on the wage rate.
Reliability is defined in the sense of showing up for scheduled work over an extended period.
Just as reliability is an important determinant of product prices, a worker's reliability ought to be an important determinant of his or her wage. Moreover, while workers are not conveniently packaged by brand name, firms form expectations about reliability across identifiable groups of workers and thus effectively attach brand names to workers based on their observable characteristics. A worker's wage depends on his own track record and the reputation for reliability of his identifiable group. Using robust measures of reliability, I find that observed reliability and expected reliability substantially affect the wage rate and that about half of the gender wage gap can be explained by differences in expected reliability between men and women in the workforce.