Labor Cost Adjustment: Evidence From a Survey of Slovak Firms
Abstract
Building on a unique survey of how Slovak firms adjust wages and prices, this paper studies the reduction of labour costs in two forms: base wage cuts and alternative margins for labour cost reduction. Anecdotal evidence suggests that wage-cutting by firms occurs more frequently in Slovakia than in any other country and that the use of alternative margins for labour cost reduction is also quite prevalent in Slovakia. Regression results support the strong relationship between the use of alternative margins and wage rigidities. I find that the use of any alternative margin is on average 30% more likely in firms facing nominal wage rigidity that in firms with flexible wages.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia in its series Working and Discussion Papers with number WP 4/2012.Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: Jun 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:svk:wpaper:1019
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Imricha Karvasa 1, 813 25 Bratislava
Phone: ++421/2/5787 1111
Fax: ++421/2/6787 1100
Email:
Web page: http://www.nbs.sk/en/publications-issued-by-the-nbs/working-papers
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: nominal and real wage rigidity; alternative margins for labour cost cutting; survey evidence;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
- J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General
- E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution
- C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-07-14 (All new papers)
- NEP-HME-2012-07-14 (Heterodox Microeconomics)
- NEP-LAB-2012-07-14 (Labour Economics)
- NEP-LMA-2012-07-14 (Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, & Wages)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Pavel Gertler, 2010. "The wage curve: A panel data view of labour market segments," Working and Discussion Papers WP 3/2010, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
- Keeney, Mary J. & Lawless, Martina, 2010.
"Wage Setting and Wage Flexibility in Ireland:Results from a Firm-level Survey,"
Research Technical Papers
1/RT/10, Central Bank of Ireland.
- Mary Keeney & Martina Lawless, 2010. "Wage setting and wage flexibility in Ireland: Results from a firm-level survey," Working Paper Series 1181, European Central Bank.
- Ian Babetskii, 2007.
"Aggregate Wage Flexibility in Selected New EU Member States,"
CESifo Working Paper Series
1916, CESifo Group Munich.
- Ian Babetskii, 2006. "Aggregate Wage Flexibility in Selected New EU Member States," Working Papers 2006/1, Czech National Bank, Research Department.
- Pavel Gertler & Matus Senaj, 2008.
"Downward Wage Rigidities in Slovakia,"
Working and Discussion Papers
WP 7/2008, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
- Pavel Gertler & Matúš Senaj, 2010. "Downward Wage Rigidities in Slovakia," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 4(1), pages 079-101, March.
- Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
- Robert Mundell, 1963. "Inflation and Real Interest," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71, pages 280.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:svk:wpaper:1019For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

