Branchenspezifische Unterschiede in der Abwärtsreallohnstarrheit: Arbeitskraftstruktur, Institutionen, Technologie und Wettbewerb

Abstract

This paper examines whether differences in wage rigidity across sectors can be explained by differences in workforce composition, wage-bargaining institutions, technology and competition. We rely on a large administrative matched employer-employee dataset for Belgium over the period 1990-2002. Our results indicate that downward real wage rigidity is significantly higher for white-collar workers, lower for older workers and decreases with the level of earnings and bonuses. Beyond labour force composition effects, we find that wages are more rigid in sectors with predominant centralised wage-setting at the sector level as opposed to firm-level agreements. Also, more labourThe opinions expressed in this paper are solely our own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the National Bank of Belgium or the Central Bank of Luxembourg. We thank W. Dickens for providing us with the International Wage Flexibility Project (IWFP) estimation programmes. We also thank CIMIRe, the Datawarehouse Labour Market of the Belgian Social Security System and Statistics Belgium for giving us access to the individual datasets. We are grateful to M. Schweitzer, participants of the WDN meetings, CAED 2008 conference and AEA 2009 conference and our colleagues for fruitful discussions as well as anonymous referees for useful suggestions. The paper was prepared while Ladislav Wintr was working at the National Bank of Belgium.

How Selective Are Real Wage Cuts? A Micro‐analysis Using Linked Employer–Employee Data

“…Turning to plant characteristics, we find that working for a plant covered by a collective agreement at sector level significantly decreases the likelihood of facing a real wage reduction (see also Devereux and Hart, ; Du Caju et al ., ), whereas neither the profit situation nor managers' expectations about future employment changes have a significant impact . What is more, small plants resort to wage cuts more often than large plants (see also Böckerman et al ., ; Du Caju et al ., ) as do Eastern German compared with Western German plants, which is clearly in line with our expectations…”

“…() with longitudinal payroll data for all workers in Finland and Du Caju et al . (, ) with matched employer–employee panel data for Belgium. The latter papers calculate differences in the incidence of real wage cuts by using reduced samples for 3 age groups, 2 occupation groups and 15 sectors and formally test differences between these samples .…”

“…() and Du Caju et al . (, ) — do not investigate differences in workers' individual risk of being exposed to real wage reductions. Therefore, there is only scant direct evidence on which groups of workers are disproportionally hit by wage reductions taking all other firm and workforce characteristics into account.…”

Outside Options Drive Wage Inequalities in Continuing Jobs: Evidence From a Natural Experiment

“…They therefore may be less willing to react on wage renegotiations initiated by their employees because they do not know their productivity and potential. In summary, smaller firms may be better able and willing to differentiate between employees in wage renegotiations according to their outside options (Guiso et al, 2005;Du Caju et al, 2012;Jäger et al, 2020).…”

"New-Keynesian Trade: Understanding the Employment and Welfare Effects of Trade Shocks"

“…Given the improved performance of the version of the model in which there is DNWR only in the manufacturing sector, it is worth discussing whether this is a realistic assumption. There are a few papers documenting a substantial degree of heterogeneity in wage rigidity across sectors and occupations for different contexts (Radowski and Bonin, 2010;Du Caju et al, 2012).…”