IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/labour/v28y2014i1p64-86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Implications of Temporary Jobs on the Distribution of Wages in Italy: An Unconditional IVQTE Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Giulio Bosio

Abstract

Using Italian data, this paper investigates the wage implications of temporary jobs across the whole pay profile using unconditional quantile regression (UQR) models. Results clearly indicate that the wage penalty associated to temporary jobs is significantly larger at the bottom of wage profile and is almost absent for high-wage jobs. This is in line with the sticky floors hypothesis, supporting the idea that the wage gap for temporary employees depends on their position in the wage distribution for low-paid jobs. To recover a causal interpretation, I employ an instrumental variable (IV) strategy. I adopt the unconditional instrumental variable quantile treatment effects (IVQTE) estimator proposed by Frolich and Melly, which corrects for endogenous selection in temporary contracts. The IVQTE estimates yield similar results to standard UQR, even if the wage penalty is larger in size at the bottom of the wage distribution and disappears at the top quantiles. This evidence highlights that policies aimed at increasing flexibility may reinforce the two-tier nature of the Italian labour market and the relative wage inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulio Bosio, 2014. "The Implications of Temporary Jobs on the Distribution of Wages in Italy: An Unconditional IVQTE Approach," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(1), pages 64-86, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:28:y:2014:i:1:p:64-86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/labr.12023
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorenzo Cappellari & Carlo Dell’Aringa & Marco Leonardi, 2012. "Temporary Employment, Job Flows and Productivity: A Tale of Two Reforms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(562), pages 188-215, August.
    2. Marloes de Graaf-Zijl, 2005. "Compensation of On-call and Fixed-term Employment: the Role of Uncertainty," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-120/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Matteo, PICCHIO, 2006. "Wage Differentials and Temporary Jobs in Italy," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006033, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    4. Francesconi, Marco & L. Booth, Alison & Frank, Jeff, 2002. "Labour as a buffer: do temporary workers suffer?," ISER Working Paper Series 2002-29, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. van der Wiel, Karen, 2010. "Better protected, better paid: Evidence on how employment protection affects wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 16-26, January.
    6. Sergio Firpo, 2007. "Efficient Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 259-276, January.
    7. Fabio Berton & Francesco Devicienti & Lia Pacelli, 2009. "Are Temporary Jobs a Port of Entry into Permanent Employment? Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data," Working papers 06, Former Department of Economics and Public Finance "G. Prato", University of Torino.
    8. Bosio, Giulio, 2009. "Temporary employment and wage gap with permanent jobs: evidence from quantile regression," MPRA Paper 16055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Alberto Abadie & Joshua Angrist & Guido Imbens, 2002. "Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Effect of Subsidized Training on the Quantiles of Trainee Earnings," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 91-117, January.
    10. Leandro Elia, 2010. "Temporary/Permanent Workers' Wage Gap: A Brand‐new Form of Wage Inequality?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 178-200, June.
    11. Markus Frölich & Blaise Melly, 2013. "Unconditional Quantile Treatment Effects Under Endogeneity," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 346-357, July.
    12. Eng Seng Loh, 1994. "Employment Probation as a Sorting Mechanism," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(3), pages 471-486, April.
    13. Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2005. "An IV Model of Quantile Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(1), pages 245-261, January.
    14. Matteo PICCHIO, 2006. "Wage Differentials between Temporary and Permanent Workers in Italy," Working Papers 257, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    15. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Serrano-Padial, Ricardo, 2007. "Wage Growth Implications of Fixed-Term Employment: An Analysis by Contract Duration and Job Mobility," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 829-847, October.
    16. Sara Rica & Juan Dolado & Vanesa Llorens, 2008. "Ceilings or floors? Gender wage gaps by education in Spain," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 751-776, July.
    17. Simona COMI & Mara GRASSENI, 2009. "Are Temporary Workers Discriminated Against? Evidence from Europe," CHILD Working Papers wp17_09, CHILD - Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic economics - ITALY.
    18. Sarah Brown & John G. Sessions, 2005. "Employee Attitudes, Earnings and Fixed-Term Contracts: International Evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(2), pages 296-317, July.
    19. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    20. Guido W. Imbens & Donald B. Rubin, 1997. "Estimating Outcome Distributions for Compliers in Instrumental Variables Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 555-574.
    21. O Blanchard & A Landier, 2002. "The Perverse Effects of Partial Labour Market Reform: fixed--Term Contracts in France," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(480), pages 214-244, June.
    22. Jahn, Elke J., 2008. "Reassessing the Wage Penalty for Temps in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3663, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. María A.Davia & Virginia Hernanz, 2004. "Temporary employment and segmentation in the Spanish labour market: An empirical analysis through the study of wage differentials," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 291-318, December.
    24. Juan F. Jimeno & Luis Toharia, 1993. "The effects of fixed-term employment on wages: theory and evidence from Spain," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 17(3), pages 475-494, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paolo Barbieri & Giorgio Cutuli, 2018. "Dual Labour Market Intermediaries in Italy: How to Lay off “Lemons”—Thereby Creating a Problem of Adverse Selection," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(4), pages 477-502, December.
    2. Inga Laß & Mark Wooden, 2020. "Temporary Employment Contracts and Household Income," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 111-132, January.
    3. Albanese, Andrea & Gallo, Giovanni, 2020. "Buy flexible, pay more: The role of temporary contracts on wage inequality," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Damiani, Mirella & Ricci, Andrea, 2016. "Training, quality of management and firm level bargaining," MPRA Paper 72209, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Romina Giuliano & Stephan Kampelmann & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2017. "Short Notice, Big Difference? The Effect of Temporary Employment on Firm Competitiveness across Sectors," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 421-449, June.
    6. Mirella Damiani & Andrea Ricci, 2016. "Training, quality of management and firm level bargaining," Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia, Finanza e Statistica 23/2016, Università di Perugia, Dipartimento Economia.
    7. Mirella Damiani & Fabrizio Pompei & Andrea Ricci, 2020. "Opting Out, Collective Contracts and Labour Flexibility: Firm‐Level Evidence for The Italian Case," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 558-586, September.
    8. Thanh-Tam Nguyen-Huu, 2021. "Do “inferior” jobs always suffer from a wage penalty? Evidence from temporary workers in Cambodia and Pakistan," Post-Print hal-04248181, HAL.
    9. Damiani, Mirella & Ricci, Andrea, 2016. "Training, quality of management and firm level bargaining," MPRA Paper 72138, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Perugini, Cristiano & Pompei, Fabrizio, 2016. "Employment protection and wage inequality within education groups in Europe," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 810-836.
    11. Rahul Menon, 2019. "Short-term contracts and their effect on wages in Indian regular wage employment," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 30(1), pages 142-164, March.
    12. Inga Laß & Mark Wooden, 2019. "The Structure of the Wage Gap for Temporary Workers: Evidence from Australian Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 453-478, September.
    13. Fabio Berton & Matteo Migheli, 2015. "Estimating the marginal rate of substitution between wage and employment protection," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 143, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    14. Eduardo Olaberría, 2016. "Bringing all Chileans on board," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1289, OECD Publishing.
    15. Damiani, Mirella & Pompei, Fabrizio & Kleinknecht, Alfred, 2020. "When robots do (not) enhance job quality: The role of innovation regimes," MPRA Paper 103059, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. McGuinness, Seamus & Bergin, Adele & Keane, Claire & Delaney, Judith, 2018. "Measuring contingent employment in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS74, June.
    17. Perugini, Cristiano & Pompei, Fabrizio, 2017. "Temporary Jobs, Institutions, and Wage Inequality within Education Groups in Central-Eastern Europe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 40-59.
    18. Alessio Tomelleri, 2021. "Temporary jobs and increasing inequality for recent cohorts in Italy," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(4), pages 500-537, December.
    19. Duman, Anil, 2020. "Non-Standard Employment and Wage Differences across Gender: a quantile regression approach," GLO Discussion Paper Series 664, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bosio, Giulio, 2009. "Temporary employment and wage gap with permanent jobs: evidence from quantile regression," MPRA Paper 16055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Albanese, Andrea & Gallo, Giovanni, 2020. "Buy flexible, pay more: The role of temporary contracts on wage inequality," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Raúl Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials by Type of Contract: Evidence from Spain," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 107-141, March.
    4. Marta Silva & Luis Filipe Martins & Helena Lopes, 2015. "Asymmetric labour market reforms and wage growth with fixed-term contracts: does learning about match quality matter?," Working Papers Series 2 15-04, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    5. Matteo PICCHIO, 2006. "Wage Differentials between Temporary and Permanent Workers in Italy," Working Papers 257, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    6. Kaspar Wüthrich, 2020. "A Comparison of Two Quantile Models With Endogeneity," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 443-456, April.
    7. Perugini, Cristiano & Pompei, Fabrizio, 2017. "Temporary Jobs, Institutions, and Wage Inequality within Education Groups in Central-Eastern Europe," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 40-59.
    8. Raúl Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials by Type of Contract: Evidence from Spain," Hacienda Pública Española, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 107-141, March.
    9. Blaise Melly und Kaspar W thrich, 2016. "Local quantile treatment effects," Diskussionsschriften dp1605, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    10. Gail Pacheco & Bill Cochrane, 2015. "Decomposing the temporary-permanent wage gap in New Zealand," Working Papers 2015-07, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    11. Callaway, Brantly & Li, Tong & Oka, Tatsushi, 2018. "Quantile treatment effects in difference in differences models under dependence restrictions and with only two time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(2), pages 395-413.
    12. Juan J. Dolado & Salvador Ortigueira & Rodolfo Stucchi, 2016. "Does dual employment protection affect TFP? Evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 421-459, November.
    13. Daniela Casale & Aalia Cassim, 2018. "How large is the wage penalty in the labour broker sector?: Evidence for South Africa using administrative data," WIDER Working Paper Series 48, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    15. Markus Frolich & Blaise Melly, 2010. "Estimation of quantile treatment effects with Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 10(3), pages 423-457, September.
    16. Liao, Wen-Chi & Zhao, Daxuan, 2019. "The selection and quantile treatment effects on the economic returns of green buildings," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 38-48.
    17. Alex Coad & Julian Frankish & Paul Nightingale & Richard Roberts, 2014. "Business experience and start-up size: Buying more lottery tickets next time around?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 529-547, October.
    18. Matteo PICCHIO, 2006. "Temporary Jobs and State Dependence in Italy," Working Papers 272, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    19. Zongwu Cai & Ying Fang & Ming Lin & Shengfang Tang, 2021. "A Nonparametric Test for Testing Heterogeneity in Conditional Quantile Treatment Effects," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 202117, University of Kansas, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2021.
    20. Bill Cochrane & Gail Pacheco & Chao Li, 2017. "Temporary-Permanent Wage Gap: Does Type of Work and Location in Distribution Matter?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 20(2), pages 125-147.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:28:y:2014:i:1:p:64-86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csrotit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.