The Value of Transferable Skills

Most studies on skill transferability focus on the return to capabilities developed in the initial job and disregard the different characteristics of the origin and the destination industries. In contrast, this article assesses the borders of skill transferability by comparing the return to skills for firm stayers, firm changers in the same industry, and firm changers to other industries. Based on a sample of Portuguese employees in retail banking, our results confirm significant inter‐firm and inter‐industry skill transferability. Difference‐in‐differences estimates with propensity score matching show that firm switchers benefit from a wage premium compared to firm stayers. However, the wage premium drops sharply when movers leave the banking sector.     

The responsiveness of industry wages to low‐frequency shocks in Canada

Abstract The first objective of this paper is to examine the empirical relationship between low‐frequency shocks to labour demand and average wages on an industrial basis using a Canadian longitudinal data set. We estimate a fixed‐effects model that controls for workers’ unobservable attributes. The second major objective is to extend the existing industry‐based literature by estimating a specification allowing for a comparison between the degree of wage responsiveness of within‐firm stayers and between‐firm movers. The findings indicate that average wages by industry tend to respond positively to low frequency changes in employment, and that there is some degree of wage flexibility within firm‐worker matches.     

企业异质性、出口对工资溢价的影响——基于中国工业企业微观数据的经验证据

本文以企业异质性理论为基础，揭示了企业异质性、出口对工资溢价的影响机理。基于中国工业企业微观数据，对企业异质性、出口对工资溢价的影响进行了实证检验。研究结果表明：(1)企业异质性对工资溢价有显著的影响。其中企业创新能力、企业生产率、资本密集度与技术密集度、企业绩效对工资溢价有显著的正向影响，企业创新能力越强、生产率水平越高、绩效越好，其工资溢价越明显。(2)出口、出口补贴能够带来显著的工资溢价，工资溢价与出口密集度、出口补贴强度呈倒U型关系。(3)人力资本(员工受教育水平、职称、技能)对工资溢价有显著的正向影响。人力资本水平越高，其工资溢价越明显。此外，大型企业、中央直属企业、外资企业、沿海企业均存在明显的工资溢价。这一研究结果有着重要的政策启示。     

Globalization and inter‐industry wage differentials in China

This paper explores the relationship between globalization and inter‐industry wage differentials in China by using a two‐stage estimation approach. Taking advantage of a rich household survey dataset, this paper estimates the wage premium for each industry in the first stage conditional on individual worker and firm characteristics. Alternative measures of globalization are considered in the second stage: trade openness and capital openness. A disaggregation of trade into trade in final and intermediate goods shows that increases in import (export) shares of final goods reduce (increase) the wage premia significantly, whereas imports or exports of intermediate goods do not explain differences in industry wage premia. This finding is supported by stronger effects for final goods trade in coastal than noncoastal regions. Our results also show a positive relationship between capital openness and industrial wage premia, though this finding is less robust when potential endogeneity issues are allowed for.     

A contribution to the public–private wage inequality debate

This paper studies the public–private wage inequality in Romania. Although public sector employment is perceived as safer and offering more benefits, we find that in Romania it also offers higher wages, after controlling for experience, education and gender. This result is at odds with the negative premium uncovered in other transition economies. The public–private wage premium is increasing across the wage distribution, leading to more inequality in the public sector. Decomposing the wage premium into the effect of personal characteristics, coefficients and residuals, we show that only about half of this premium can be attributed to personal characteristics, especially in the top half of the wage distribution. We also find that the number of other public sector employees in the family is a significant driver of public sector employment, facilitating access to jobs. However, the effects of self‐selection are negligible, the premium being still positive and significant after controlling for this.     

WHY FOREIGN OWNERSHIP MAY BE GOOD FOR YOU*

We develop a two‐country model with heterogeneous producers and rent‐sharing at the firm level. We identify two sources of a multinational wage premium: A composition effect because multinational firms are more productive, make higher profits, and pay higher wages, and a firm‐level wage effect, because a firm makes higher global profits and thus pays higher wages in its home market when becoming multinational. With two identical countries, the wage premium is fully explained by firm characteristics. Allowing for technology differences between countries, a residual wage premium exists in the technologically backward country but not in the advanced country.     

The formal sector wage premium and firm size

We show theoretically that when larger firms pay higher wages and are more likely to be caught defaulting on labor taxes, then large-high wage firms will be in the formal and small-low wage firms will be in the informal sector. The formal sector wage premium is thus just a firm size wage differential. Using data from Ecuador we illustrate that firm size is indeed the key variable determining whether a formal sector premium exists.     

Trade liberalization and the wage–skill premium: Evidence from Vietnamese manufacturing

This paper examines the wage–skill premium in Vietnamese manufacturing since the reform programme. The effects of tariff reductions on the wage–skill premium are analyzed in the presence of exporting opportunities, foreign investment, and research and development. The findings with firm‐level data reveal that a 10‐ percentage point fall in output tariffs is associated with a 4 percent increase in the wage–skill premium. The wage–skill premium in foreign‐invested enterprises is 40 percent higher than that of domestic enterprises. Trade liberalization influences the wage–skill premium in the presence of foreign ownership and R&D, while its impact on the skill premium only works through exporting.     

Does having a cadre parent pay? Evidence from the first job offers of Chinese college graduates

We estimate the wage premium associated with having a cadre parent in China using a recent survey of college graduates carried out by the authors. The wage premium of having a cadre parent is 15%, and this premium cannot be explained by other observables such as college entrance exam scores, quality of colleges and majors, a full set of college human capital attributes, and job characteristics. These results suggest that the remaining premium could be the true wage premium of having a cadre parent.     

Foreign ownership wage premia in emerging economies

In this article we examine the relationship between wages, labour productivity and ownership using a linked employer–employee dataset covering a large fraction of the Czech labour market in 2006. We distinguish between different origins of ownership and study wage and productivity differences. The raw wage differential between foreign and domestically‐owned firms is about 23 percent. The empirical analysis is carried out on both firm‐ and individual‐level data. A key finding is that industry, region and notably human capital explain only a small part of the foreign–domestic ownership wage differential. Both white and blue collar workers as well as skilled and unskilled employees obtain a foreign ownership wage premium. Foreign ownership premia are more prevalent in older and less technologically advanced firms. Joint estimation of productivity and wage equations show that, controlling for human capital, the difference in productivity is about twice as large as the wage differential. Overall, results indicate that the international firms share their rents with their employees.     

Who values the family‐friendly aspects of a job? Evidence from the Japanese labour market

Women with family responsibilities such as child‐rearing generally prefer jobs with flexible working conditions. According to the theory of compensating wage differentials, women working in such family‐friendly jobs are paid less than those working in family‐unfriendly jobs. The present paper investigates whose wages are more greatly affected by the family‐(un)friendly aspects of their jobs. Based on a longitudinal survey of Japanese women, we found that among several family‐(un)friendly attributes of a job, only commuting time requires a wage premium, and most of the premium is associated with job changes made by part‐time‐working married women.     

TRAINING, JOB SECURITY AND INCENTIVE WAGES

This paper considers the optimal level of firm‐specific training by taking into account the positive effect of training on the expected duration of workers' current employment. In the framework of an efficiency wage model, a short expected job tenure represents a disamenity that reduces the penalty from shirking. As this disamenity increases, workers have an incentive to continue providing a positive level of effort only if they are compensated by a higher wage. We endogenize the employment separation rate by introducing firm‐specific training. Firm‐specific training creates a rent that is lost if the worker is separated from the firm. As a result, the firm will be more reluctant to fire its trained workforce in a recession. This implies that firm‐specific training can decrease current wages because it represents a commitment to lower future labour turnover.     

Firm Size and Wages in Germany – Trends and Impacts of Mobility

The analysis of firm-size wage differentials in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, firstly corroborates the finding that wages rise with firm-size and shows that the rank order of mean wages between firm-size classes is stable for the period 1984–1993. Secondly, the most important novel results are as follows: (i) wage differentials between firm-size classes increased during the period investigated after controlling for individual attributes and computing with deflated values; (ii) average levels of the qualification of employees have diverged noticeably between small and large firms; (iii) movers from small to larger firms have to accept wages below the average pay of incumbents with comparable attributes in the new firms: (iv) movers to smaller firms, however, retain a portion of their higher wages in larger firms; and (v) wage differentials between smaller and larger firms decline with increasing unemployment.     

STABLE SETS AND STEADY WAGES

This paper uses the notion of the Stable Set, in conjunction with a mild restriction on the extent to which a firm can quickly replace its entire workforce, to explain equal treatment across workers within a firm yet wage differentials across firms, and why a firm responds with quantity rather than with wage adjustments to shocks.     

Games of status and discriminatory contracts

Following recent empirical evidence which indicates the importance of rank for the determination of workers' wellbeing, this paper introduces status seeking preferences in the form of rank-dependent utility functions into a moral-hazard framework with one firm and multiple workers, but no correlation in production. We show that workers' concern for the rank of their wage in the firm's wage distribution induces the firm to offer discriminatory wage contracts when its aim is to induce all workers to expend effort.     

A Model of a Price-setting Duopoly with a Wage-rise Contract

This paper considers a wage-rise contract between a firm and its employees as the firm's strategy, and suggests a wage-rise-contract policy. The policy is a promise by the firm that it will announce a certain output level and a wage premium rate, and if it actually produces more than the announced output level, then it will pay each employee a wage premium uniformly. First, this paper examines the case in which one of two firms unilaterally offers the wage-rise-contract policy by using a two-stage price-setting duopoly model. It is then shown that there exists an equilibrium which coincides with the Stackelberg solution where the firm adopting the policy is the leader. Next, this paper examines the case in which both firms can offer the wage-rise-contract policy in the model. It is then shown that there exists an equilibrium which is more profitable for both firms than in the unilateral case.     

Multinational Firms and Technology Transfer

We construct an oligopoly model in which a multinational firm has a superior technology compared to local firms. Workers employed by the multinational acquire knowledge of its superior technology. The multinational may pay a wage premium to prevent local firms from hiring its workers and thus gaining access to their knowledge. In this setting, the host government has an incentive to attract FDI due to technology transfer to local firms or the wage premium earned by employees of the multinational firm. However, when FDI is particularly attractive to the multinational firm, the host government has an incentive to discourage FDI.
JEL classification : F 13; F 23; J 41; L 13; O 14; O 33; O 38     

Efficiency Wages and the Regulated Firm

This paper develops empirical tests of "efficiency-wage" hypotheses and applies these tests to data on a regulated firm. According to efficiency-wage theory, wage levels positively affect employee performance and, moreover, cost minimization requires that employers pay a wage premium above the supply price of labor. To explore these issues, we use company-level data to estimate production and quit functions that allow for efficiency-wage effects. Our empirical results support efficiency-wage theory: payment of a wage premium reduces the firm's quit rate, raises labor productivity, and lowers operating costs. These findings call into question the regulatory practice of disallowing labor expenses when the regulated firm's wage levels exceed market averages.     

International Trade and Collective Bargaining Outcomes: Evidence from German Employer–Employee Data

In theoretical trade models with variable mark‐ups and collective wage bargaining, exposure to international markets might reduce the exporter wage premium. We test this prediction using linked German employer–employee data covering the years 1996–2007. To separate the rent‐sharing mechanism from assortative matching, we exploit individual worker information to construct profitability measures that are free of skill composition. Our results show that rent‐sharing is less pronounced in more export‐intensive firms or in more open industries. The exporter wage premium is highest for low‐productivity firms. In line with theory, these findings are unique to the subsample of plants covered by collective bargaining.     

Micro Foundations for Wage Flexibility: Wage Insurance at the Firm Level*

To what extent do firms insulate their workers' wages from fluctuations in product markets? Which firm and worker attributes are associated with wage flexibility at the micro level? We first rely on Guiso, Pistaferri and Schivardi (2005) to estimate dynamic models of sales and wages, finding that in Portugal, workers' wages respond to permanent shocks on firm performance, as opposed to transitory shocks. We then explore the factors associated with wage flexibility, finding that collective bargaining and minimum wages are associated with higher wage insurance by the firm, while the threat of firm bankruptcy reduces it. Managers receive less protection against permanent shocks than other workers.