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Wage bargaining regimes and firms' adjustments to the Great Recession

Author

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  • Ronchi, Maddalena
  • di Mauro, Filippo

Abstract

The paper aims at investigating to what extent wage negotiation setups have shaped up firms’ response to the Great Recession, taking a firm-level cross-country perspective. We contribute to the literature by building a new micro-distributed database which merges data related to wage bargaining institutions (Wage Dynamic Network, WDN) with data on firm productivity and other relevant firm characteristics (CompNet). We use the database to study how firms reacted to the Great Recession in terms of variation in profits, wages, and employment. The paper shows that, in line with the theoretical predictions, centralized bargaining systems – as opposed to decentralized/firm level based ones – were accompanied by stronger downward wage rigidity, as well as cuts in employment and profits. JEL Classification: J30, J50, D22, D61

Suggested Citation

  • Ronchi, Maddalena & di Mauro, Filippo, 2017. "Wage bargaining regimes and firms' adjustments to the Great Recession," Working Paper Series 2051, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20172051
    Note: 437559
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Claudio Lucifora & Daria Vigani, 2021. "Losing Control? Unions’ Representativeness, Pirate Collective Agreements, and Wages," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(2), pages 188-218, April.
    2. Ester Faia & Vincenzo Pezone, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Cost of Wage Rigidity: Evidence from the Stock Market," 2019 Meeting Papers 278, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Marcella Scrimitore, 2019. "Endogenizing managerial delegation: A new result under Nash bargaining and network effects," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2019/15, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    4. Javier Bianchi & Jorge Mondragon, 2022. "Monetary Independence and Rollover Crises," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 137(1), pages 435-491.
    5. Francesco Palma & Yann Thommen, 2020. "Employment Protection Reform in European Labor Markets: The Collective Bargaining Regime Matters," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 541-575, December.
    6. Faia, Ester & Pezone, Vincenzo, 2018. "Monetary Policy and the Cost of Heterogeneous Wage Rigidity: Evidence from the Stock Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 13407, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    firm level analysis; global financial crisis; productivity; wage bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • 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

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