IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/brjirl/v46y2008i3p500-520.html

Decentralized Wage Formation in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Lena Granqvist
  • Håkan Regnér

Abstract

Recent Swedish collective bargaining agreements have incorporated provisions for local pay review talks and opportunities for individuals to negotiate their own wages. Using trade union data, we show that members who participate in local pay review talks and members who negotiate their own wages have significantly higher monthly wages than those who do not. Pay decentralization either improves an individual's bargaining position or attracts more productive trade union members. Either way, trade union wage policies to increase individual‐level wage variance are achieving their intended effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Lena Granqvist & Håkan Regnér, 2008. "Decentralized Wage Formation in Sweden," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 46(3), pages 500-520, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:46:y:2008:i:3:p:500-520
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2008.00688.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2008.00688.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2008.00688.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George A. Akerlof & Janet L. Yellen, 1990. "The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 255-283.
    2. Plasman, Robert & Rusinek, Michael & Rycx, François, 2006. "Wages and the Bargaining Regime under Multi-level Bargaining: Belgium, Denmark and Spain," IZA Discussion Papers 1990, IZA Network @ LISER.
    3. Carlo Dell’Aringa & Laura Pagani, 2007. "Collective Bargaining and Wage Dispersion in Europe," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(1), pages 29-54, March.
    4. John T. Addison & Claus Schnabel (ed.), 2003. "International Handbook of Trade Unions," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2705, June.
    5. Levine, David I., 1991. "Cohesiveness, productivity, and wage dispersion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 237-255, March.
    6. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr & Locking, Hakan, 2000. "Wage Dispersion and Productive Efficiency: Evidence for Sweden," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(4), pages 755-782, October.
    7. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    8. James Albrecht & Anders Bjorklund & Susan Vroman, 2003. "Is There a Glass Ceiling in Sweden?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 145-177, January.
    9. Buchinsky, Moshe, 1994. "Changes in the U.S. Wage Structure 1963-1987: Application of Quantile Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 405-458, March.
    10. Magnus Gustavsson, 2006. "The evolution of the Swedish wage structure: new evidence for 1992-2001," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(5), pages 279-286.
    11. Alex Bryson, 2007. "The Effect of Trade Unions on Wages," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 33-45.
    12. Roger Koenker & Kevin F. Hallock, 2001. "Quantile Regression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 143-156, Fall.
    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. Andréasson, Hannes, 2014. "The effect of decentralized wage bargaining on the structure of wages and firm performance," Ratio Working Papers 241, The Ratio Institute.
    2. Maczulskij, Terhi & Haapanen, Mika & Kauhanen, Antti & Riukula, Krista, 2024. "Decentralized wage bargaining and health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    3. Bernd Brandl & Christian Lyhne Ibsen, 2017. "Instability and Change in Collective Bargaining: An Analysis of the Effects of Changing Institutional Structures," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(3), pages 527-550, September.
    4. Willén, Alexander, 2021. "Decentralization of wage determination: Evidence from a national teacher reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Karlson, Nils & Lindberg, Henrik, 2011. "The Decentralization of Wage Bargaining: Four Cases," Ratio Working Papers 178, The Ratio Institute.
    6. Braakmann, Nils & Brandl, Bernd, 2016. "The Efficacy of Hybrid Collective Bargaining Systems: An Analysis of the Impact of Collective Bargaining on Company Performance in Europe," MPRA Paper 70025, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Säve-Söderbergh, Jenny, 2019. "Gender gaps in salary negotiations: Salary requests and starting salaries in the field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 35-51.
    8. Brändle, Tobias, 2024. "Unions and Collective Bargaining: The Influence on Wages, Employment and Firm Survival," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1457, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Andrea Garnero & François Rycx & Isabelle Terraz, 2020. "Productivity and Wage Effects of Firm‐Level Collective Agreements: Evidence from Belgian Linked Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(4), pages 936-972, December.
    10. Bustos, Emil, 2024. "Collectively Bargained Wages and Female Earnings: Evidence from Swedish Local Governments," Working Paper Series 1494, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    11. Marta Lachowska, 2017. "Outside options and wages: What can we learn from subjective assessments?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 79-121, February.
    12. Chris Howell & Rebecca Kolins Givan, 2011. "Rethinking Institutions and Institutional Change in European Industrial Relations," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 49(2), pages 231-255, June.
    13. Ylva Ulfsdotter Eriksson & Bengt Larsson & Petra Adolfsson, 2021. "Under the Surface of Individual and Differentiated Pay in Sweden: A Zero‐Sum Game of Performance‐Based Pay?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 398-417, June.
    14. Antti Kauhanen & Terhi Maczulskij & Krista Riukula, 2024. "The incidence and effects of decentralized wage bargaining in Finland," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 232-253, June.
    15. Nils BRAAKMANN & Bernd BRANDL, 2021. "The performance effects of collective and individual bargaining: A comprehensive and granular analysis of the effects of different bargaining systems on company productivity," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(1), pages 43-64, March.
    16. Roland Ahlstrand & Jérôme Gautié, 2023. "Labour–management relations and employee involvement in lean production systems in different national contexts: A comparison of French and Swedish aerospace companies," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(4), pages 1027-1051, November.

    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. Guy Vernon & Mark Rogers, 2013. "Where Do Unions Add Value? Predominant Organizing Principle, Union Strength and Manufacturing Productivity Growth in the OECD," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 51(1), pages 1-27, March.
    2. Qingjie Xia & Lina Song & Shi Li & Simon Appleton, 2014. "The effect of the state sector on wage inequality in urban China: 1988--2007," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 29-45, February.
    3. Uwe Jirjahn & Kornelius Kraft, 2010. "Teamwork And Intra‐Firm Wage Dispersion Among Blue‐Collar Workers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(4), pages 404-429, September.
    4. Salimata Sissoko, 2011. "Working Paper 03-11 - Niveau de décentralisation de la négociation et structure des salaires," Working Papers 1103, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    5. Joachim Wagner, 2014. "Exports, foreign direct investments and productivity: are services firms different?," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 24-37, January.
    6. Alex Coad, 2008. "Distance to Frontier and Appropriate Business Strategy," LEM Papers Series 2008/13, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    7. RAMDANI, Dendi & VAN WITTELOOSTUIJN, Arjen, 2009. "Board independence, CEO duality and firm performance: A quantile regression analysis for Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand," Working Papers 2009004, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    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.
    9. Ramos, Raul & Sanromá, Esteban & Simón, Hipólito, 2022. "Collective bargaining levels, employment and wage inequality in Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 375-395.
    10. Sungwon Lee & Joon H. Ro, 2020. "Nonparametric Tests for Conditional Quantile Independence with Duration Outcomes," Working Papers 2013, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    11. Juan Manuel del Pozo Segura, 2017. "Has the Gender Wage Gap been Reduced during the 'Peruvian Growth Miracle?' A Distributional Approach," Documentos de Trabajo / Working Papers 2017-442, Departamento de Economía - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
    12. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Robust Estimation of Wage Dispersion with Censored Data: An Application to Occupational Earnings Risk and Risk Attitudes," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 519-540, December.
    13. Böheim, René & Himpele, Klemens & Mahringer, Helmut & Zulehner, Christine, 2013. "The distribution of the gender wage gap in Austria : evidence from matched employer-employee data and tax records," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 46(1), pages 19-34.
    14. Douglas A. Hibbs, Jr. & Håkan Locking, 1995. "Solidarity Wage Policies and Industrial Productivity in Sweden," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 22, pages 95-108.
    15. Fu, Dahai & Wu, Yanrui, 2013. "Export wage premium in China's manufacturing sector: A firm level analysis," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 182-196.
    16. Marrocu, Emanuela & Paci, Raffaele & Zara, Andrea, 2015. "Micro-economic determinants of tourist expenditure: A quantile regression approach," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-30.
    17. Kaya, Ezgi, 2019. "Gender wage gap across the quantiles:What is the role of firm segregation?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2019/7, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    18. Balestra, Simone & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2017. "Heterogeneous returns to education over the wage distribution: Who profits the most?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 89-105.
    19. Cho, Sungwook & Heshmati, Almas, 2013. "What If You Had Been Less Fortunate: The Effects of Poor Family Background on Current Labor Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 7708, IZA Network @ LISER.
    20. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Dispersion estimation; Earnings risk; Censoring; Quantile regression; Occupational choice; Sorting; Risk preferences; SOEP; IABS," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 028, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.

    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:brjirl:v:46:y:2008:i:3:p:500-520. 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/lsepsuk.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.