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Wage rigidity and employment adjustment at the firm level: evidence from survey data

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  • Daniel Dias
  • Carlos Robalo Marques
  • Fernando Martins

Abstract

This paper uses firm level survey data from Portugal to investigate how firms adjust their labour costs in the presence of wage rigidities. We document that Portuguese firms, besides reducing employment or freezing nominal base wages, also make frequent use of other cost-cutting strategies, like freezing or cutting bonus and other monetary or non-monetary benefits, slowing down or freezing the rate at which promotions are filled, or recruiting new employees at wageslower than those received by the employees that have left the firm. We show that the utilization of these different adjustment strategies is affected by workers’ and firms’ attributes, as well as by some indicators of the economic environment in which firms operate. More importantly, we provide evidence that firms with more flexible base wages are less likely to reduce employment, and that such effect may be significantly strengthened by the availability of alternative labourcost adjustment margins that firms can use in bad times.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department in its series Working Papers with number w201212.

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Date of creation: 2012
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Handle: RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201212

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References

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  1. Carlos Robalo Marques, 2008. "Wage and Price Dynamics in Portugal," Working Papers w200815, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
  2. Jan Babecky & Philip Du Caju & Theodora Kosma & Martina Lawless & Julian Messina & Tairi Room, 2009. "Downward nominal and real wage rigidity : Survey evidence from European firms," Working Paper Research 182, National Bank of Belgium.
  3. Steinar Holden & Fredrik Wulfsberg, 2008. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in the OECD," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 15.
  4. Stüber, Heiko & Beissinger, Thomas, 2010. "Does downward nominal wage rigidity dampen wage increases?," FZID Discussion Papers 22-2010, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
  5. Messina, Julian & Sanz-de-Galdeano, Anna, 2011. "Wage rigidity and disinflation in emerging countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5863, The World Bank.
  6. Babecky, Jan & Caju, Philip Du & Kosma, Theodora & Lawless, Martina & Messina, Julian & Room, Tairi, 2009. "The margins of labor cost adjustment : survey evidence from European firms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5160, The World Bank.
  7. Centeno, Mário & Novo, Álvaro A., 2012. "Excess worker turnover and fixed-term contracts: Causal evidence in a two-tier system," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 320-328.
  8. Pedro Portugal & Anabela Carneiro & Paulo Guimarães, 2010. "On the cyclical sensitivity of real wages," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
  9. D. Fabbri & C. Monfardini & R. Radice, 2004. "Testing exogeneity in the bivariate probit model: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to health economics," Working Papers 514, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
  10. Knoppik, Christoph & Beissinger, Thomas, 2005. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity in Europe: An Analysis of European Micro Data from the ECHP 1994-2001," IZA Discussion Papers 1492, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  11. Carlsson, Mikael & Westermark, Andreas, 2007. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity," Working Paper Series 206, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
  12. William T. Dickens & Lorenz Goette & Erica L. Groshen & Steinar Holden & Julian Messina & Mark E. Schweitzer & Jarkko Turunen & Melanie E. Ward, 2006. "How wages change : micro evidence from the International Wage Flexibility Project," Working Paper Research 96, National Bank of Belgium.
  13. Holden, Steinar & Wulfsberg, Fredrik, 2009. "How strong is the macroeconomic case for downward real wage rigidity?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 605-615, May.
  14. Paulo Soares Esteves & Ricardo Mourinho Félix & Francisco Craveiro Dias, 2004. "Revisiting the NAIRU Estimates for the Portuguese Economy," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
  15. Chiara Monfardini & Rosalba Radice, 2008. "Testing Exogeneity in the Bivariate Probit Model: A Monte Carlo Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(2), pages 271-282, 04.
  16. Joseph G. Altonji & Paul J. Devereux, 1999. "The Extent and Consequences of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity," NBER Working Papers 7236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Danielle Venn, 2009. "Legislation, Collective Bargaining and Enforcement: Updating the OECD Employment Protection Indicators," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 89, OECD Publishing.
  18. Michael W. L. Elsby, 2005. "Evaluating the Economic Significance of Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity," CEP Discussion Papers dp0704, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
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Cited by:
  1. Daniel Dias & Carlos Robalo Marques & Fernando Martins, 2012. "Labour cost-cutting strategies microeconomic evidence from survey data," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.

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