Do exporters pay fair-wage premiums?

•We identify the exporter wage premium using information about the wage drift.•Support for the fair-wage hypothesis: exporters pay above the binding union wage bound.•Novel instrumentation strategy supports structural estimates (Egger et al., 2011).•Corner solution problem addressed in Tobit and IV-Tobit models.

Egger et al. (2011) propose a structural estimation of the exporter wage premium employing a Melitz-trade model with rent sharing due to fair-wage concerns. Our alternative identification strategy, based upon voluntary payments above the agreed wage floor for employers subject to collective agreements, confirms their results.