IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000094/007736.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wage differentials across economic sectors in the Colombian formal labour market: evidence from a survey of firms

Author

Listed:
  • Ana María Iregui B.

    ()

  • Ligia Alba Melo B.

    ()

  • María Teresa Ramírez

    ()

Abstract

The existence of wage differentials across sectors is a widely observed phenomenon. This paper provides new elements to understand inter and intra-sectoral wage differentials in Colombia by analysing a wage setting survey of 1305 firms and emphasizing the role of firm characteristics. The results from the descriptive analysis of the survey confirm the existence of substantial wage differentials across sectors and occupational positions in the country. We found positive wage differentials, with respect to the average of the economy for the different occupational groups, in electricity, gas, water and mining, financial services and manufacturing and strong negative wage differentials in agriculture, forestry and fishing. When analysing wage differential within each occupational group, higher wage dispersion is observed in the case of managers, followed by professionals. The lower wage dispersion for the least qualified jobs could be associated with the existence of a minimum wage in the country. In addition, we estimate cross section models for each occupational group and sector to account for the importance of firm characteristics in explaining wage differentials.

Suggested Citation

  • Ana María Iregui B. & Ligia Alba Melo B. & María Teresa Ramírez, 2010. "Wage differentials across economic sectors in the Colombian formal labour market: evidence from a survey of firms," BORRADORES DE ECONOMIA 007736, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000094:007736
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.banrep.gov.co/docum/ftp/borra629.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alejandro Hoyos & Hugo Ñopo & Ximena Peña, 2010. "The Persistent Gender Earnings Gap in Colombia, 1994-2006," Documentos CEDE 007094, Universidad de los Andes - CEDE.
    2. Gracia Orlando & Gustavo Hernández & Juan Mauricio Ramirez, 2001. "Diferenciales salariales y mercados laborales en la industria colombiana," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes - CEDE, September.
    3. Philip Du Caju & Gábor Kátay & Ana Lamo & Daphne Nicolitsas & Steven Poelhekke, 2010. "Inter-Industry Wage Differentials In EU Countries: What Do Cross-Country Time Varying Data Add to the Picture?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(2-3), pages 478-486, 04-05.
    4. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2009. "Formación e incrementos de salarios en Colombia: Un estudio microeconómico a partir de una encuesta a nivel de firma," Borradores de Economia 582, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    5. Björklund, Anders & Bratsberg, Bernt & Eriksson, Tor & Jäntti, Markus & Raaum, Oddbjørn, 2004. "Inter-Industry Wage Differentials and Unobserved Ability: Siblings Evidence from Five Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1080, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2014. "Wage‐setting Decisions on Newly Hired Employees: Survey Evidence from Colombian Firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 231-246, April.
    2. Diego Winkelried, 2014. "Exchange rate pass-through and inflation targeting in Peru," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 1181-1196, June.
    3. Carmiña O. Vargas, 2011. "Desigualdad de salarios en Colombia: evidencia a partir de encuestas de hogares 1984 -2010," Borradores de Economia 661, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    4. Ana María iregui & Ligia Alba Melo B. & María Teresa Ramírez G., 2010. "Wage-setting Decisions on Newly Hired Employees:," BORRADORES DE ECONOMIA 007808, BANCO DE LA REPÚBLICA.
    5. repec:bdr:bdrcap:2012-12-211-251 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Sebastian Sterl, 2018. "Determinanten zur Einkommensentwicklung in Deutschland: Ein Vergleich von Personen mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund auf Basis des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP)," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 992, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wage differentials; survey of firms; labour market; cross section estimation.;

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:col:000094:007736. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Clorith Angélica Bahos Olivera). General contact details of provider: .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.