Wage differentials across sectors in Europe

Using a unique harmonized linked employer–employee dataset, this paper analyses the structure and determinants of inter‐industry wage differentials in Central and Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) and compares them to those observed in Western European states. Findings show substantial differences in earnings across sectors in all countries, even when controlling for a wide range of employee, job and employer characteristics. The hierarchy of sectors in terms of wages appears to be quite similar in Eastern and Western European countries, although the former tend to have higher levels of dispersion of inter‐industry wage differentials.     

Public or Private Sector Wage Leadership? An International Perspective*

Whether a government acts as a wage leader, placing pressure on private‐sector wages (more open to competition), or whether it plays a passive role and merely follows wage negotiations in the private sector, there are important implications for macroeconomic development, particularly in small open economies and/or countries that are members of a monetary union, such as those of the European Monetary Union. With the notable exception of the case of Sweden, opinion on this issue is still divided. In this paper, we look at public‐ and private‐sector wage interactions from an international perspective (18 OECD countries). We focus on the causal two‐way relationship between public and private wage setting, confirming that the private sector, on the whole, appears to have a stronger influence on the public sector, rather than vice versa. However, we also find evidence of feedback effects from public wage setting, which affect private‐sector wages in a number of countries. When the private sector takes the lead on wages, there are few feedback effects from the public sector, while public wage leadership is typically accompanied by private‐sector feedback effects.     

Immigration Wage Effects by Origin

We estimate the direct partial wage effects of immigrant‐induced increases in labor supply, using the national skill cell approach with longitudinal records drawn from Norwegian administrative registers. The results show overall negative but heterogeneous wage effects, with larger effects on immigrant wages than on native wages and with native wages more responsive to inflows from Nordic countries than from developing countries. These patterns are consistent with natives and Nordic citizens being close substitutes, while natives and immigrants from developing countries are imperfect substitutes. Estimates are sensitive to accounting for effective immigrant experience, selective native participation, and variation in demand conditions and native labor supply.     

International trade and unionization: Evidence from India

We exploit exogenous variation in tariffs to examine the impact of import competition on unionization and union wages in a developing country. Using a combination of nationally representative household data (National Sample Survey Organization) and nationally representative industry‐level data (Annual Survey of Industries) from India, we find that net‐import industries that experienced larger cuts in tariffs also experienced larger declines in unionization. In addition, we find that these industries also experienced larger increases in union wages. These results are consistent with the predictions of an efficient bargaining framework that we extend to endogenize the union formation decision by allowing for a fixed cost of union formation. We also conduct a back‐of‐the‐envelope calculation to show that the total wage gains to unionized workers marginally exceed the total wage losses to deunionized workers.     

Does the labour supply of wives respond to husbands' wages? Canadian evidence from micro data and grouped data

Abstract. Using micro data and grouped data, we assess the extent to which Canadian wives adjusted their labour supply in response to changes in husbands' wages during the period 1980‐2000. Grouped data parameters based on weighted least squares and the unbiased‐error‐in‐variables estimator developed by Devereux (2004, 2007a,b) yield cross‐wage elasticities that are substantially higher (in absolute value) than those derived from OLS regressions run on micro data. Both grouping estimators indicate that the labour supply of Canadian wives responded strongly to changes in husbands' wages during the 1980s. For the 1990s, our estimates of wives' cross‐wage elasticity display greater dispersion.     

Liberalization and the Changing Inter‐industry Wage Structure of the Organized Manufacturing Sector in India, 1973/74–2003/04

This paper examines the inter‐industry wage structure of the organized manufacturing sector in India for the period 1973/74–2003/04 by estimating the growth of average real wages for production workers by industry. Using wage data on 51 three‐digit industries, our estimation procedure obtains estimates of growth of real wages per worker that are wholly deterministic in nature by accounting for any potential structural break(s) associated with the reforms. Our paper identifies three distinct regimes—pre‐reform, first phase reforms and second phase reforms, over which real wages have grown at varying rates for each industry. Our findings suggest that the inter‐industry wage differences have become more pronounced in the post‐reform periods. The paper provides new evidence from India on the need to consider seriously the hypothesis that industry affiliation is potentially an important determinant of wages when studying any relationship between reforms and wages.     

Wages in a growing Russia

The robust Russian economic recovery after the 1998 financial crisis raised the economic standing of the population, especially for lowly paid workers, most of whom are women. In this paper I use the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey from 1996 through 2002 to ask whether this helped to reduce the gender wage gap. I first focus on those whose wages are paid in full. Next, I ask about the gender composition of wage arrears as the overall extent of wage arrears dropped from 60 to 20 per cent after the 1998 crisis. I show that a temporary widening of the overall gender wage gap in 2000 is due to low‐wage women becoming more likely to receive their wages in full than low‐wage men. Except for this effect, the male–female pay difference in Russia exhibits a stable pattern.     

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.     

全球制造业工资停滞之谜*——来自进口中间产品质量视角的经验证据

本文从快速增长的中间产品贸易及其质量视角研究了全球制造业工资停滞现象。首先，基于DS垄断竞争框架和Koch & Smolka(2019)的研究，本文重新构建开放条件下的工资决定模型，发现进口中间产品质量影响各国劳动工资。其次，借鉴Feenstra & Romalis(2014)的研究，本文构建全新的测度产品—行业—国家层面进口中间产品质量GEKS 指数法，估算1995—2011年37个国家从248个出口市场进口的制造业四位码中间产品质量指数，发现全球制造业进口中间产品质量上升趋势明显但分化严重，中等和低等收入国家质量指数持续上升，高等收入国家质量指数持续下降。最后，本文从跨国—行业层面定量识别进口中间产品质量对进口国制造业工资的具体影响，发现：(1)进口中间产品质量对全球制造业的劳动工资有显著负向影响，对中等收入国家、中级技术密集型行业、高技能劳动者以及进口矿物类中间产品制造业的工资降低效应最大；(2)进口中间产品质量通过“就业破坏效应”和“研发激励效应”两种机制造成全球制造业工资下降；(3)进口中间产品质量变化造成制造业工资下降是全球化中的市场性经济规律和暂时性“全球冲击波”。上述发现解释了全球制造业工资停滞之谜，并启示各国须尊重全球化的市场规律，加强国际合作，共同应对冲击，提高民众福祉，携手共建人类命运共同体。     

Is Downward Wage Flexibility the Primary Factor of Japan's Prolonged Deflation?

By using both macro‐ and micro‐level data, this paper investigates how wages and prices evolved during Japan's lost two decades. We find that downward nominal wage rigidity was present in Japan until the late 1990s, but disappeared after 1998 as annual wages became downwardly flexible. Moreover, nominal wage flexibility may have contributed to Japan's relatively low unemployment rates. Although macro‐level movements in nominal wages and prices seemed to be synchronized, such synchronicity is not observed at the industry level. Therefore, wage deflation does not seem to be a primary factor of Japan's prolonged deflation.     

The Polish wage inequality explosion1

This paper presents and analyses the sharp increase in hourly wage inequality after 1998 in Poland. The increase was similar in magnitude to the much‐studied increase in British wage inequality during the 1980s. Using data from the Polish Labour Force Survey, we find this increase to be associated with rising wage differentials and within‐group variances at both the upper and lower ends of the wage distribution. These increases are associated with differences in wage‐setting patterns between the public and private sector as well as with the rapid increase in demand for educated labour. One important difference between the sectors is the lack of an impact of local labour market conditions, or wage curve, clearly evident in private sector wages, on public sector wages.     

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.     

Wage Rigidity,Inflation, and Institutions

We study the possible existence of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) at wage growth rates different from zero in aggregate data. Even if DNWR prevails at zero for individual workers, compositional effects might lead to falling aggregate wages, while changes in relative wages combined with DNWR might lead to positive aggregate wage growth. We explore industry data for 19 OECD countries, over the 1971–2006 period. We find evidence for a floor on nominal wage growth at 6 percent in the 1970s and 1980s, at 1 percent in the 1990s, and at 0.5 percent in the 2000s. Furthermore, we find that DNWR is stronger in country‐years with strict employment protection legislation, high union density, centralized wage setting, and high inflation.     

The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns

I discuss the econometrics and the economics of past research on the effects of minimum wages on employment in the United States. My intent is to try to identify key questions raised in the recent literature, and some from the earlier literature, which I think hold the most promise for understanding the conflicting evidence and arriving at a more definitive answer about the employment effects of minimum wages. My secondary goal is to discuss how we can narrow the range of uncertainty about the likely effects of the large minimum wage increases becoming more prevalent in the United States. I discuss some insights from both theory and past evidence that may be informative about the effects of high minimum wages, and try to emphasize what research can be done now and in the near future to provide useful evidence to policy‐makers on the results of the coming high minimum wage experiment, whether in the United States or in other countries.     

The Macroeconomic Consequences of Reciprocity in Labor Relations*

We develop and analyze a structural model of efficiency wages founded on reciprocity. Workers are assumed to face an explicit trade‐off between the disutility of providing effort and the psychological benefit of reciprocating the gift of a wage offer above some reference level. The model provides a rationale for rent sharing—a feature that is very much present in the data but absent from previous formulations of the efficiency wage hypothesis. This firm‐internal perspective on efficiency wages has potentially important macroeconomic consequences: rent‐sharing considerations promote wage rigidity, internal amplification and differential responses to technology and demand shocks.     

Minimum Wages and the Gender GAP in Pay: New Evidence from the United Kingdom and Ireland

Women are disproportionately in low‐paid work compared to men so, in the absence of rationing effects on their employment, they should benefit the most from minimum wage policies. This study examines the change in the gender wage gap around the introduction of minimum wages in Ireland and the United Kingdom (U.K.). Using survey data for the two countries, we develop a decomposition of the change in the gender differences in wage distributions around the date of introduction of minimum wages. We separate out “price” effects attributed to minimum wages from “employment composition” effects. A significant reduction of the gender gap at low wages is observed after the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland, while there is hardly any change in the U.K. Counterfactual simulations show that the difference between countries may be attributed to gender differences in non‐compliance with the minimum wage legislation in the U.K.     

SHIRKING,STANDARDS AND THE PROBABILITY OF DETECTION

By relaxing the common efficiency wage assumption of exogenous shirking detection probabilities, we demonstrate how standards and efficiency wages are related. In a more general setting where the probability of detection depends upon the equilibrium effort level of non‐shirkers, we show that the uniformly positive (negative) supply‐side relationship between wages (unemployment insurance) and effort is no longer guaranteed. Profit maximization on the part of the firm, however, ensures that effort will depend positively (negatively) on wages (unemployment insurance) in equilibrium.     

Unobserved Individual and Firm Heterogeneity in Wage and Job‐Duration Functions: Evidence from German Linked Employer–Employee Data

Abstract. We analyse the correlations between individual and firm fixed effects, and wage and job‐duration functions. Our results for large firms suggest that low‐wage firms tend to be stable firms, suggesting that lower wages can buy job stability. Furthermore, high‐wage workers sort into the stable low‐wage firms. Our interpretation is that high‐wage workers have a higher wage to insure against job loss and can afford more easily to forgo wages in favour of job stability. This may provide an explanation of the puzzle identified in previous literature that high‐wage workers are matched to low‐wage firms.     

Prices,Productivity and Wage Bargaining in Open Economies*

According to the standard union bargaining model, unemployment benefits should have big effects on wages, but product‐market prices and productivity should play no role in the wage bargain. We formulate an alternative strategic bargaining model, where labour and product‐market conditions together determine wages. A wage equation is derived and estimated on aggregate data for four Nordic countries. Wages are found to depend not only on unemployment and the replacement ratio, but also on productivity, international prices and exchange rates. There is evidence of considerable nominal wage rigidity. Exchange rate changes have large and persistent effects on competitiveness.     

Wage Determination in Rural Russia: A Stochastic Frontier Model

This article examines wages in rural Russia after the first decade of economic transition using data from a nationally representative household survey. The stochastic frontier analysis reveals that Russia's rural labour markets place high value on human capital. The overall level of rural wages, however, is very low, with the median wage 10% below the official subsistence level. The gender pay gap severely depresses women's wages. A woman with the same skills as a man is paid only 47% of the man's wage. Rural workers who receive income from their personal plots accept significantly lower wages. Private firms pay considerably higher wages than state or collectively owned firms, but account only for one fifth of rural workers.