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Intra-firm Wage Dispersion and Firm Performance

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Author Info
Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf
Zweimüller, Josef

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Abstract

Personnel economics has suggested conflicting arguments about the impact of increased wage dispersion within firms on workers’ productivity and firm performance. Besides giving more advancement incentives, bigger wage differentials might also give rise to less cooperation and more politics between workers resulting in worse outcomes. We try to answer these questions using panel data for Austrian firms. As indicators for firm performance we use employment growth and standardized wages. For white-collar wages the following picture emerges: more dispersion leads to higher earnings up to some point where the relation changes direction. For blue-collar wages we find a positive association between dispersion and standardized wages between firms, but no relation within firms over time. For employment growth the results are ambiguous.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 1621.

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Date of creation: Apr 1997
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1621

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Related research
Keywords: Firm Productivity; Incentives; Wage Dispersion;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
J53 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Labor-Management Relations; Industrial Jurisprudence

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1994. "The Wage Policy of a Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 921-55, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  3. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1990. "The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(2), pages 255-83, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  5. Blinder, Alan S & Choi, Don H, 1990. "A Shred of Evidence on Theories of Wage Stickiness," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 1003-15, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Fichtenbaum, Rudy & Shahidi, Hushang, 1988. "Truncation Bias and the Measurement of Income Inequality," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 6(3), pages 335-37, July.
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  8. Charles Brown & James L. Medoff, 1989. "The Employer Size-Wage Effect," NBER Working Papers 2870, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-80, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1990. "Executive pay and firm performance," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 43(3), pages 13-29, February.
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  12. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Falkinger, Josef, 1999. "Social instability and redistribution of income," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 35-51, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 1992. "Endogenous Growth, Human Capital, and Industry Wages," CEPR Discussion Papers 714, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf & Zweimuller, Josef, 1996. "Immigration and the Earnings of Young Native Workers," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 473-91, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Milgrom, Paul R, 1988. "Employment Contracts, Influence Activities, and Efficient Organization Design," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 42-60, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  22. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Efficiency of Equity in Organizational Decision Processes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 154-59, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Steve Bradley & Alina Petrescu & Rob Simmons, 2004. "The impacts of human resource management practices and pay inequality on workers' job satisfaction," Working Papers 000276, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
  2. Nils Braakmann, 2008. "Intra-firm wage inequality and firm performance – First evidence from German linked employer-employee-data," Working Paper Series in Economics 77, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Pedro S. Martins, 2008. "Dispersion in Wage Premiums and Firm Performance," Working Papers 8, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer--employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. S. Iranzo & Fabiano Schivardi & E. Tosetti, 2006. "Skill dispersion and firm productivity: an analysis with employer-employee matched data," Working Paper CRENoS 200617, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2005. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers bgse3_2005, University of Bonn, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Bingley, Paul & Eriksson, Tor, 2001. "Pay Spread and Skewness, Employee Effort and Firm Productivity," Working Papers 01-2, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Luiz A. Esteves & Pedro S. Martins, 2008. "Is firm performance driven by fairness or tournaments? Evidence from Brazilian matched data," Working Papers 16, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research. [Downloadable!]
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