Real Wage Cyclicality in Italy

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Real Wage Cyclicality in ItalyFei Peng W. Stanley Siebert The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. We distinguish between job stayers (remaining in the same job), and within-and between-company job movers. Stayers are the large majority. We find stayers in Northern Italy to have high cyclicality of real wages, higher in fact than the US and the UK. The Northern cyclicality is significant for all sub-samples (except for public sector workers), and higher in small firms, the private sector, and for temporary workers, as expected. In contrast, we find little wage cyclicality for any sub-group in the Centre-South, even for workers in small private sector firms. Evidently, labour markets in the North of Italy operate much more competitively than in the Centre and South.JEL Classification: E32, J31, K31

Real wage responsiveness to unemployment in Spain: asymmetries along the business cycle

“…For instance, Pissarides (2009) summarizes the evidence of real wage cyclicality in the US and some European countries, finding wage to unemployment semi-elasticities being above 1 in the US case, although with large differences between job-movers and job-stayers. Results for different European countries also tend to find this semi-elasticity above 1, especially in the UK (close to 2 according to Devereux and Hart (2006) and Peng and Siebert (2006)), but also in Germany, Italy or Portugal 13 .…”

Real Wage Responsiveness to Unemployment in Spain: Asymmetries Along the Business Cycle

“…Results for different European countries also tend to find this semi-elasticity above 1, especially in the UK (close to 2 according to Devereux and Hart (2006) and Peng and Siebert (2006)), but also in Germany, Italy or Portugal 13 .…”

New technology and old institutions: An empirical analysis of the skill-biased demand for older workers in Europe

“…Compared with males, wage shares of older females are much lower (1% to 6.6%), which may be related to lower statutory pensionable ages (SPA) for females (Carmichael and Ercolani, 2014). Italy still has the smallest wage share (1%) for older females, suggesting low labour participation of older workers (Peng and Siebert, 2008).…”

“…Countries may adopt and utilise technologies differently, depending on their institutional regulatory structure and absorptive capacity in relation to the availability of new technology (Acemoglu, 1998;Lewis 2011). The rigidity of labour market institutions and employment protection have been offered as explanations for the persistently higher unemployment rate and lower skill premium in Continental Europe (Peng and Siebert 2008;Anger, 2011;Afonso, 2016). On the other hand, institutions responsible for relative wage rigidity in continental Europe also encourage investment in technology that increases the productivity of less skilled or older workers, thus implying relatively less skillbiased technological change in these countries compared to the US (Acemoglu, 2003).…”