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Wage Floor Rigidity in Industry-Level Agreements: Evidence from France

Author

Listed:
  • Denis Fougère

    (OSC - Observatoire sociologique du changement (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po)

  • Erwan Gautier

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France, LEMNA - Laboratoire d'économie et de management de Nantes Atlantique - IEMN-IAE Nantes - Institut d'Économie et de Management de Nantes - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises - Nantes - UN - Université de Nantes)

  • Sébastien Roux

    (INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE))

Abstract

This paper examines empirically the dynamics of wage floors defined in industry-level wage agreements in France. It also investigates how industry-level wage floor adjustment interacts with changes in the national minimum wage (NMW hereafter). For this, we have collected a unique dataset of approximately 3,200 industry-level wage agreements containing about 70,000 occupation-specific wage floors in 367 industries over the period 2006Q1-2017Q4. Our main results are the following. Wage floors are quite rigid, adjusting only once a year on average. They mostly adjust in the first quarter of the year and the NMW shapes the timing of industry-level wage bargaining. Inflation but also changes in past aggregate wage increases and in the real NMW are the main drivers of wage floor adjustments. Elasticities of wage floors with respect to these macro variables are 0.6, 0.4 and 0.3 respectively. Inflation and the NMW have both decreasing but positive effects all along the wage floor distribution. (Discussion Paper, IZA Institute of Labor Economics, n° 11828)

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier & Sébastien Roux, 2018. "Wage Floor Rigidity in Industry-Level Agreements: Evidence from France," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03443485, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03443485
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03443485v1
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    Cited by:

    1. Bernardo Fanfani, 2019. "The Employment Effects of Collective Bargaining," Working papers 064, Department of Economics, Social Studies, Applied Mathematics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    2. Bertrand Garbinti & Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Vladimir Pecheu & Frederique Savignac, 2025. "Explaining the dynamics of the gender gap in lifetime earnings," Working Papers hal-05099831, HAL.
    3. Francesco De Palma & KSamuel Ligonnière & Jamel Saadaoui & Yann Thommen, 2022. "The Role of Wage Bargaining Institutions in the Phillips curve Flattening," Working Papers REM 2022/0236, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    4. Frédérique Savignac & Erwan Gautier & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Olivier Coibion, 2024. "Firms’ Inflation Expectations: New Evidence from France," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(6), pages 2748-2781.
    5. Haapanala, Henri & Marx, Ive & Parolin, Zachary, 2022. "Decent Wage Floors in Europe: Does the Minimum Wage Directive Get It Right?," IZA Discussion Papers 15660, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Brändle, Tobias, 2024. "Unions and Collective Bargaining: The Influence on Wages, Employment and Firm Survival," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1457, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Ive Marx; & Henri Haapanala; & Sarah Marchal;, 2024. "Is poverty reduction in Europe doomed? Conjectures, facts and a cautiously optimistic conclusion," Working Papers 2403, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    8. Bassanini, Andrea & Batut, Cyprien & Caroli, Eve, 2023. "Labor Market Concentration and Wages: Incumbents versus New Hires," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Bernardo Fanfani & Claudio Lucifora & Daria Vigani, 2024. "Employer associations in Italy: Trends and economic outcomes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(2), pages 206-232, June.
    10. Pora, Pierre & Wilner, Lionel, 2020. "A decomposition of labor earnings growth: Recovering Gaussianity?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Marx, Ive & Haapanala, Henri & Marchal, Sarah, 2024. "Is Poverty Reduction in Europe Doomed? Conjectures, Facts and a Cautiously Optimistic Conclusion," IZA Discussion Papers 16967, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. 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.
    13. Bassanini, Andrea & Batut, Cyprien & Caroli, Eve, 2021. "Labor Market Concentration and Stayers' Wages: Evidence from France," IZA Discussion Papers 14912, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Pierre Cahuc, 2022. "Inequalities in the French labour market: a mixed picture," Working Papers hal-03882550, HAL.
    15. Gautier, Erwan & Roux, Sébastien & Suarez Castillo, Milena, 2022. "How do wage setting institutions affect wage rigidity? Evidence from French micro data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Gόrnicka, Lucyna & Koester, Gerrit & Radowski, Daniel & Gautier, Erwan & Peinado, Mario Izquierdo & Stiglbauer, Alfred & Wittekopf, David & Puente, Sergio & Duarte, Cláudia Filipa & Martins, Fernando , 2024. "A forward-looking tracker of negotiated wages in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 338, European Central Bank.

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

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