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 for the Study of Labor (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.
    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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:eee:juecon:v:101:y:2017:i:c:p:27-44 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2017. "A Note on the Estimation of Job Amenities and Labor Productivity," CREA Discussion Paper Series 17-14, Center for Research in Economic Analysis, University of Luxembourg.
    3. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    4. Kory Kantenga, 2016. "Sorting and Wage Inequality," 2016 Meeting Papers 660, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Bosquet, Clément & Combes, Pierre-Philippe, 2017. "Sorting and agglomeration economies in French economics departments," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 27-44.
    6. Bosquet, Clément & Combes, Pierre-Philippe, 2017. "Sorting and agglomeration economies in French economics departments," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 27-44.
    7. Colin Green & John S. Heywood & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2017. "Employer size and supervisor earnings: Evidence from Britain," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 04-2017, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    8. Philipp Ehrl, 2014. "High-wage workers and high-productivity firms - a regional view on matching in Germany," Working Papers 149, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    9. González de San Román, Ainara & Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda F., 2014. "An estimation of worker and firm effects with censored data," Economics Discussion Papers 2014-28, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
    10. Yolanda F. Rebollo-Sanz, 2017. "Decomposing the structure of wages into firm and worker effects: Some insights from a high unemployment economy," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 38(5), pages 765-787, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fixed effects; linked employer-employee panel data; limited mobility bias;

    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: (Mark Fallak). 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.