This paper uses supervision data from a supplement to the 1977 wave of the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics to examine differences in supervision and wages across industries and to evaluate relationships between supervision practices and interindustry wage differentials. The results demonstrate that workers in high-wage industries are supervised with equal or greater stringency than secondary sector workers. Further, the results offer no evidence that interindustry differences in monitoring contribute to interindustry wage differentials. Such findings appear to contradict explanations for industry wage premiums that are motivated by efficiency wage models of shirking.

We show that within the Chicago Public Schools, both the introduction of NCLB in 2002 and the introduction of similar district-level reforms in 1996 generated noteworthy increases in reading and math scores among students in the middle of the achievement distribution but not among the least academically advantaged students. The stringency of proficiency requirements varied among the programs implemented for different grades in different years, and our results suggest that changes in proficiency requirements induce teachers to shift more attention to students who are near the current proficiency standard.