IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp6662.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

High Wage Workers Match with High Wage Firms: Clear Evidence of the Effects of Limited Mobility Bias

Author

Listed:
  • Andrews, Martyn J.

    () (University of Manchester)

  • Gill, Leonard

    () (University of Manchester)

  • Schank, Thorsten

    () (University of Mainz)

  • Upward, Richard

    () (University of Nottingham)

Abstract

Positive assortative matching implies that high productivity workers and firms match together. However, there is almost no evidence of a positive correlation between the worker and firm contributions in two-way fixed-effects wage equations. This could be the result of a bias caused by standard estimation error. Using German social security records we show that the effect of this bias is substantial in samples with limited inter-firm movement. The correlation between worker and firm contributions to wage equations is unambiguously positive.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrews, Martyn J. & Gill, Leonard & Schank, Thorsten & Upward, Richard, 2012. "High Wage Workers Match with High Wage Firms: Clear Evidence of the Effects of Limited Mobility Bias," IZA Discussion Papers 6662, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6662
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp6662.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Shimer & Lones Smith, 2000. "Assortative Matching and Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 343-370, March.
    2. Gruetter, Max & Lalive, Rafael, 2009. "The importance of firms in wage determination," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 149-160, April.
    3. Rasmus Lentz & Jesper Bagger, 2009. "An Empirical Model of Wage Dispersion with Sorting," 2009 Meeting Papers 964, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Michael Kremer, 1993. "The O-Ring Theory of Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 108(3), pages 551-575.
    5. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    6. Woodcock, Simon D., 2015. "Match effects," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 100-121.
    7. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2011. "Identifying Sorting--In Theory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 78(3), pages 872-906.
    8. Mendes, Rute & van den Berg, Gerard J. & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2010. "An empirical assessment of assortative matching in the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 919-929, December.
    9. John M. Abowd (corresponding) & Francis Kramarz, 2004. "Are Good Workers Employed by Good Firms? A Simple Test of Positive Assortative Matching Models," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 385, Econometric Society.
    10. John Abowd & Francis Kramarz & Sebastien Perez-Duarte & Ian Schmutte, 2009. "A Formal Test of Assortative Matching in the Labor Market," Working Papers 09-40, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    12. John M. Abowd & Robert H. Creecy & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Computing Person and Firm Effects Using Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    13. Krueger, Alan B & Summers, Lawrence H, 1988. "Efficiency Wages and the Inter-industry Wage Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 259-293, March.
    14. M. J. Andrews & L. Gill & T. Schank & R. Upward, 2008. "High wage workers and low wage firms: negative assortative matching or limited mobility bias?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 171(3), pages 673-697, June.
    15. Sattinger, Michael, 1975. "Comparative Advantage and the Distributions of Earnings and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 455-468, May.
    16. Amine Ouazad, 2008. "A2REG: Stata module to estimate models with two fixed effects," Statistical Software Components S456942, Boston College Department of Economics.
    17. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    18. Goux, Dominique & Maurin, Eric, 1999. "Persistence of Interindustry Wage Differentials: A Reexamination Using Matched Worker-Firm Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 492-533, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Zhu, Susan Chun, 2014. "Globalization and imperfect labor market sorting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 177-194.
    2. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 63-87, January.
    3. Torres, Sónia & Portugal, Pedro & Addison, John T. & Guimarães, Paulo, 2018. "The sources of wage variation and the direction of assortative matching: Evidence from a three-way high-dimensional fixed effects regression model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 47-60.
    4. Woodcock Simon D, 2010. "Heterogeneity and Learning in Labor Markets," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-69, September.
    5. Paulo Guimarães & Pedro Portugal & Sónia Torres & John T. Addison, 2013. "The sources of wage variation: a three-way high-dimensional fixed effects regression model," Working Papers w201309, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. Torben Sørensen & Rune Vejlin, 2013. "The importance of worker, firm and match effects in the formation of wages," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 435-464, August.
    7. Michèle A. Weynandt, 2014. "Selective Firing and Lemons," NRN working papers 2014-05, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    8. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2013. "Mismatch, Sorting and Wages Dynamics," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/32h1padvln8, Sciences Po.
    9. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2011. "Identifying Sorting--In Theory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 78(3), pages 872-906.
    10. Mendes, Rute & van den Berg, Gerard J. & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2010. "An empirical assessment of assortative matching in the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 919-929, December.
    11. Woodcock, Simon D., 2015. "Match effects," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 100-121.
    12. Philipp Ehrl, 2019. "On The Use Of Firm Fixed Effects As A Productivity Measure For Analyzing Labor Market Matching," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 195-208, April.
    13. Cornelissen, Thomas & Hübler, Olaf, 2007. "Unobserved Individual and Firm Heterogeneity in Wage and Tenure Functions: Evidence from German Linked Employer-Employee Data," IZA Discussion Papers 2741, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Cristian Bartolucci & Francesco Devicienti, 2012. "Better Workers Move to Better Firms: A Simple Test to Identify Sorting," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 259, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    15. Nilsen, Øivind Anti & Raknerud, Arvid & Skjerpen, Terje, 2011. "Using the Helmert-transformation to reduce dimensionality in a mixed model: Application to a wage equation with worker and firm heterogeneity," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 11/2011, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics, revised 04 Oct 2011.
    16. Adhvaryu, Achyuta & Bassi, Vittorio & Nyshadham, Anant & Tamayo, Jorge, 2020. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm," CEPR Discussion Papers 14554, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Thomas Cornelißen & Olaf Hübler, 2011. "Unobserved Individual and Firm Heterogeneity in Wage and Job‐Duration Functions: Evidence from German Linked Employer–Employee Data," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(4), pages 469-489, November.
    18. Bombardini, Matilde & Orefice, Gianluca & Tito, Maria D., 2019. "Does exporting improve matching? Evidence from French employer-employee data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 229-241.
    19. Mittag, Nikolas, 2016. "A Simple Method to Estimate Large Fixed Effects Models Applied to Wage Determinants and Matching," IZA Discussion Papers 10447, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Lochner, Benjamin & Schulz, Bastian, 2020. "Firm productivity, wages, and sorting," IAB Discussion Paper 202004, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fixed effects; linked employer-employee panel data; limited mobility bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal 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:iza:izadps:dp6662. 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: (Holger Hinte). General contact details of provider: http://www.iza.org .

    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.