外资所有权与工资升水——来自中国制造业的证据

很多研究发现外商投资企业比内资企业对同等情况下的工人所付工资要高,本文利用中国省际制造业分大类数据对此进行了实证研究,研究的结果表明,在控制了各种对工资影响因素(产业、地区、企业、工人素质)后,外资所有权工资升水显著存在,大约为10%。同时还对平均薪酬进行了研究,外资所有权薪酬升水大约为7%。此外,本文还得出了其他一些有意义的结论。     

Do Exporting Firms Pay Higher Wages? Evidence from Kenya's Manufacturing Sector

Abstract: When trade liberalization was first embarked on in Kenya some 20 years ago, a key argument against it was that it would reduce domestic wages, as exporting firms sought to remain competitive versus, for example, the low‐cost Asian countries. A counter argument was that manufactured exports require more elaborate design, supervision, packaging and handling, and thus a more educated labor force than production for the domestic market. To attract such skills, exporting firms would need to pay higher wages than non‐exporting ones. This paper uses data from Kenyan manufacturing to study the impact of trade liberalization on earnings, distinguishing between exporting and non‐exporting firms. In particular, it investigates whether exporting firms paid a wage‐premium to their employees. The study uses manufacturing firm survey data from a World Bank regional project. The study has three important findings: (1) There was a large and significant effect of exporting on wages in the first decade of trade liberalization. During the first half of the 1990s, workers in exporting firms earned up to 30 percent more than those engaged in non‐exporting firms. The results are robust even after controlling for individual and firm‐level characteristics such as employee demographics, productivity, firm location and occupation. (2) After a decade of trade liberalization, exporting ceased to be a significant determinant of wages in Kenyan manufacturing, after controlling for productivity and firm location. (3) During the 2000s, casual or irregular employment became a more common feature of exporting firms. The results suggest that while higher wages were important in attracting skilled labor to exporting firms at the beginning of trade liberalization in the 1990s, domestic competition has since reduced the wage premium. Cost cutting pressures are instead reflected in the substitution of casual and low wage labor for permanent and better educated labor and in increased automation.     

The firm's demand for daily hours of work: Some implications

Conclusion This paper starts with an intuitively plausible assumption about the way in which a worker's effectiveness varies over the workday. It develops a number of interesting implications of this assumption. First, in the absence of fixed costs of hiring and premium pay for overtime, hours per day per worker desired by the firm would not vary with the wage. Second, with fixed costs of hiring and a premium-pay-for-overtime requirement, there is likely to be a bunching of firms with desired workdays of eight hours. Third, holding hiring costs constant, desired hours will decrease with expected length of stay (expected tenure) of the employee. Fourth, the framework can be used to analyze the way in which increases in the minimum wage affect both hours per worker and the number of employees. The authors would like to thank Sherwin Rosen for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Export Activity,Firm Size and Wage Structure: Evidence from Taiwanese Manufacturing Firms*

This study adopts a semiparametric smooth coefficient model to evaluate the export–wage premiums, firm size–wage premiums, and the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor. Particular focus is placed upon widespread evidence indicating that pay levels in ‘large’ and ‘export‐oriented’ firms are higher than in their ‘small’ and ‘domestic‐oriented’ counterparts. Applying the firm‐level data for Taiwanese manufacturing firms, we find a positive export–wage premium for skilled workers and a negative export–wage premium for unskilled workers. The hypothesis of a constant export premium across firm size is rejected. While most of the export–wage premiums for skilled labor can be attributed to the small and medium firms, the large exporting firms have a significant adverse effect on wages for unskilled labor. Moreover, our results suggest that the firm size–wage premiums for skilled workers are larger than those for unskilled workers. The wage gap between the two skill groups is also sensitive to size categories.     

Industry-specific human capital and the wage profile: Evidence from Taiwan

Using data from Taiwan's Manpower Utilization Survey (1979–2000), this paper finds evidence that supports the industry-specific human capital effect on wage tenure profiles. Work experience is used as an indirect measure for testing industry-specific human capital by comparing the effect between stayers and movers. Other things being equal and holding firm tenure constant, movers actually incur a wage loss measured by the wage premium of the work experience. However, a greater than average firm tenure effect, especially for movers in the voluntary group, reflects an underlying job-related matching process. We also find that the effect of work experience declines with education, while the effect of industry-specific human capital increases with education. JEL no. J24, J31, J41, J62.     

Corruption as an Occupational Choice: Endogenous Corruption and Tax Policy

Corruption is endemic in many countries, and empirical studies have demonstrated how it impacts on macroeconomic indicators. Theoretical studies have generally assumed an exogenously given proportion of the population are corrupt or that the public sector is fixed in size; far fewer explore how corruption emerges endogenously. We endogenize corruption as an occupational choice. Workers choose private or public employment; public employees can be honest or corrupt. Corruption is subject to a social sanction that results in a loss of self-esteem. Those who care little about the social sanction choose to be corrupt. When a firm meets a corrupt public employee it pays a bribe to secure a reduction in the tax rate. The economy has two self-sustaining equilibria with different levels of corruption. Corruption reduces tax revenue and the tax rate that maximizes revenue. An increase in the social sanction reduces corruption but also reduces tax revenues if the economy is in a high-corruption equilibrium. Paying a wage premium to public sector workers can result in all public sector workers being corrupt. Public sector audits to detect corrupt workers always reduce corruption but can only increase welfare when they are cheap to conduct and the economy is in a low-corruption equilibrium.     

Segmentation and discrimination in China's emerging industrial labor market

This article analyzes wage-setting behavior in four types of enterprise: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), township and village enterprises (TVEs), joint ventures (JVs), and foreign-invested firms (FIFs) in China's light consumer goods industry in 1998. We find that there is no significant difference among the four types of firms in the returns to education, while FIFs pay a wage premium for experience. Gender wage discrimination is found equally across all four firm types. However, the wage advantage enjoyed by urban residents seems to have disappeared across all ownership categories.     

Why Do Foreign-Owned Firms Pay More? The Role of On-the-Job Training

While foreign-owned firms have consistently been found to pay higher wages than domestic firms to what appear to be equally productive workers, the causes of this remain unresolved. In a two-period bargaining framework we show that if training is more productive and specific in foreign firms, foreign firm workers will have a steeper wage profile and thus acquire a premium over time. Using a rich employer-employee matched data set we verify that the foreign wage premium is only acquired by workers over time spent in the firm and only by those that receive on-the-job training, thus providing empirical support for a firm-specific human capital acquisition explanation. JEL no. F23, J24     

Union relevance in the Malaysian labour market

The study estimates the effect of union membership on workers' wages using individual‐level data from a survey conducted among employees in various sectors in Malaysia in 2012. Initial results show that union membership has a positive effect on wages. However, after controlling for endogeneity, union membership or the presence of a labour union within a firm is not statistically significant for individual wage levels. Because there is no trade union wage premium, the study suggests that the revival of labour union membership is not going to be an easy task.     

Global value chains,firms, and wage inequality: Evidence from China

How does participating or moving to more upstream in the global value chains (GVCs) affect the premium paid to skilled compared to unskilled labor within firms? In this paper, we develop a model of heterogeneous firms with intermediate trade and two skill inputs, in which we apply the fair wage hypothesis to predict the wage premium changes according to firms' GVCs activities. The model predicts that firms' backward GVC participation, as measured by the share of foreign value-added content in exports (FVAR), has an ambiguous impact on wage inequality of skills, which depends on the relative importance of “FVAR-labor substitution effect” and “FVAR-profit effect.” However, moving to upstream sectors in GVCs, as measured by the export varieties' upstreamness (or average distance from final use), raises a firm's wage premium. Using detailed Chinese firm-level data from 2000 to 2006, we develop a Mincer-type empirical model to study the wage premium changes associated with FVAR and upstreamness. We find robust empirical evidence that the rise of wage inequality in China mainly arises from moving to more upstream sectors rather than changing GVC participation.     

Where Do the Sick Go? Health Insurance and Employment in Small and Large Firms

Small firms that offer health insurance to their employees may face variable premiums if the firm hires an employee with high-expected health costs. To avoid expensive premium variability, a small firm may attempt to maintain a workforce with low-expected health costs. In addition, workers with high-expected health costs may prefer employment in larger firms with health insurance rather than in smaller firms. This results in employment distortions. We examine the magnitude of these employment distortions in hiring, employment, and separations using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from 1996 to 2001. We find that workers with high-expected health costs are less likely to be new hires in insured small firms and are less likely to be employed in insured small firms. We find no evidence that state small group health insurance reforms designed to restrict insurers' ability to deny coverage and restrict premium variability have reduced the extent of these distortions.     

Wage growth and inequality in urban China: 1988–2013

We investigate the evolution of wage levels, wage inequality, and wage determinants among urban residents in China using China Household Income Project data from 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013.Average wage grew impressively between each pair of years. Wage inequality had long been on the increase, but between 2007 and 2013 no clear changes occurred. In 1988, age and wages were positively related throughout working life, but more recently older workers' wages have been lower than those of middle-aged workers. The relationship between education and wages was weak in 1988 but strengthened rapidly thereafter—a process that came to a halt in 2007.During the period in which China was a planned economy the gender wage gap was small in urban China, but it widened rapidly between 1995 and 2007. We also report the existence of a premium for being employed in a foreign-owned firm or in the state sector.     

外资并购国有企业中的职工安置问题研究

长期以来,由于中国采取低工资、高就业的政策,再加上国有企业的高福利政策,更是使得职工不愿随意离去。这种情况,往往使企业在兼并的过程中,受到职工大力的反对而作罢。而政府也希望能够保障职工的权益,避免造成社会问题,于是颁布了一些关于职工安置的法规,并在确定资产转让价格时要考虑这一因素。但这成本的增加,却会使得兼并方却步,也不容易达成兼并的目标。该如何平衡这两者,最好的方式还是尽快建立社会保障制度,并且彻底的实施,才能达到双赢的局面。     

INSTITUTIONAL WAGE EFFECTS: REVISITING UNION AND BARGAINING COUNCIL WAGE PREMIA IN SOUTH AFRICA

The literature on the union wage gap in South Africa is extensive, spanning a range of data sets and methodologies. There is, however, little consensus on the appropriate method to correct for the endogeneity of union membership or the size of the union wage gap. Furthermore, there are very few studies on the bargaining council wage premium in South Africa because of lack of data on the coverage of employees under these agreements. Our study, using 2005 Labour Force Survey data, firstly reconsiders the union wage gap controlling for both firm‐level and job characteristics. When correcting for the endogeneity of union status through a two‐stage selection model and including firm size, type of employment, and non‐wage benefits, we find a much lower union wage premium for African workers in the formal sector than premiums reported in some previous studies. Secondly, our study estimates bargaining council wage premiums for the private and public sectors. We find that extension procedures are present in both private and public bargaining council systems but that unions negotiate for additional gains for their members at the plant level. Furthermore, there is some evidence that unions negotiate for awards for their members in the private sector irrespective of bargaining council coverage.     

Marital Status and Productivity: Evidence from Personnel Data

Although a robust wage premium for married men has been documented extensively in the labor economics literature, prior studies have been hampered in testing competing explanations of the premium by a lack of data on worker productivity. This study exploits a unique data set that contains job-performance measures for employees of a large, hierarchical organization. The quasi-longitudinal data track the marital status and job productivity, including performance reviews and promotions, of male Naval officers in technical and managerial jobs. Compared with single men, married men receive significantly higher performance ratings and are more likely to be promoted. In estimates that control for selection arising from quit decisions, the size of the marriage productivity effect falls but in most cases remains robust. Also, based on supplementary tests, selectivity arising from the decision to marry appears to explain only a small portion of the unadjusted marriage premium for Navy officers.     

Decomposing Gender Wage Differentials in Urban Ethiopia: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee (LEE) Manufacturing Survey Data

Abstract

This study estimates the magnitude of gender wage differentials for a sample of workers from the Ethiopian manufacturing sector using the traditional Oaxaca–Blinder and an augmented Cotton–Neumark methodologies. In doing so, it separates part of the estimated log of gender wage differential explained by differences in human capital characteristics between men and women from that which is not explained by such differences. The latter is known in the literature as “treatment” component or “discrimination” due to differing pay structures for the two gender groups. Accordingly, it is found that in Ethiopia's manufacturing sector men on average get up to 30% more than women depending on the measure used. However, once we control for a number of individual and establishment level characteristics, the level of wage premium for men over women is close to 5% or around 12 Ethiopian cents per hour. Out of this, both decomposition procedures estimate that close to 60% of the premium is a result of discrimination (different treatment of men and women in the labour market). Using an augmented decomposition technique, it is found that out of the 60% “discrimination component” close to 13% is due to men's treatment advantage in the labour market and the remaining 47% is due to women's treatment disadvantage. Also it is found that firm level characteristics are important contributors to the total discrimination component. Without controlling for establishment level characteristics, the discrimination component would have been around 27% indicating that ignoring establishment characteristics in decomposition exercises would result into a biased estimation, and in this case it would have underestimated the level of discrimination by close to 50%.     

The minimum wage,exports, and firm performance: Evidence from Indonesia

This paper examines the interrelationship between changes in the provincial minimum wage, firms’ export behavior, and firms’ performance in Indonesia. In this regard, we apply a two-stage least squares regression analysis to detailed firm-level data of manufacturing enterprises during 2002–2014. We find that an increase in the minimum wage is associated with a decrease in a firm’s employment and productivity, but increase in its probability of exporting and markup. We also use the 2012 minimum wage reform in Indonesia to conduct a difference-in-difference analysis to further mitigate the potential endogeneity of minimum wage regulation. Our findings are generally robust to alternative estimation methods. Moreover, quantile regression results indicate that the average wage, firm size, and the education level of workers also affect the predictions. Above all, this study suggests that Indonesian exports and the country’s comparative advantage in international markets are not negligibly affected by higher labor costs caused by the growth in the minimum wage.     

Firm Size and Work Compensation in China

Remarkably, recent research on the Chinese labor market has suggested that the situation in China is inconsistent with the stylized fact that large firms pay higher wages and offer more generous benefits. Expanding the empirical basis from 78 to 300 000 industrial firms, I overturn theprevious result andshow that wage determination in the averagefirmfits the international norm. Exploring subsamples of firms I also point to a likely source for the conflictingfindings： firm size is positively correlatedwith the average wage in private firms, but negatively correlated with the average wage in the state-owned sector. These novel results couM guide future studies aiming to understand the sources of the firm size wage premium, and, in particular, studies that target the largest industrial labor market in the world     

The Effects of Incentive Scheme and Task Difficulty on Employees' Altruistic Behavior Outside the Firm

Employer-sponsored opportunities for altruism outside the workplace can improve employee engagement and passion within the firm, enhance the firm's corporate visibility, and improve its recruitment. There is limited understanding of whether and how a firm's management control system on employees' daily tasks can influence employee willingness to engage in altruism outside the workplace. In this study, we investigate via an experiment how the incentive scheme (tournament vs. piece rate) on employees' daily tasks interacts with the difficulty level of these tasks (low vs. high) to affect employees' altruistic behavior outside the firm. Our results indicate that, compared to a piece-rate scheme, a tournament scheme leads to a greater decrease in non-winning participants' altruistic behavior outside the firm when the original, incentivized task is more difficult compared to when it is less difficult. Consistent with our theory, participants' feelings of excessive entitlement partially mediate the interaction effect of incentive scheme and task difficulty on participants' altruistic behavior outside the firm. This study informs firms about how the design of its incentive scheme on employees' daily task inside the firm and the nature of that task can influence employee willingness to act altruistically outside the firm.     

Labor Market Distortions in Côte d'Ivoire: Analyses of Employer‐Employee Data from the Manufacturing Sector*

Abstract: This paper investigates the extent and nature of distortions in the labor market in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire by using quantile regression analysis on employer‐employee data from the manufacturing sector. We found that the labor markets in Côte d'Ivoire do not seem to be much distorted. Unions may influence employment through tenure but do not seem to influence wages directly except for vulnerable minorities that seem protected by unions. Establishment‐size wage effects are pronounced and highest for white‐collar workers. This may be explained by the efficiency wage theory, so that, even in the absence of unions, segmentation and inefficiencies will still be present as long as firms seek to retain their employees by paying wages above the market clearing level. The inefficiency arising from establishment‐size wage effects can be mitigated by education. Furthermore, the premium to education is found highly significantly positive only for higher education, and not for basic education, indicating that educational policies should also focus on higher education.