IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mar/magkse/201013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Fixed Wage Puzzle: Why Profit Sharing Is So Hard to Implement

Author

Listed:
  • Jürgen Jerger

    (University of Regensburg and Osteuropa-Institut Regensburg)

  • Jochen Michaelis

    (University of Kassel)

Abstract

It is well known that profit sharing arrangements Pareto-dominate fixed wage contracts. Share agreements are (far) less than ubiquitous, however. This paper offers a solution of this "fixed wage puzzle“ by adopting a perspective of bounded rationality. We show that share arrangements that fulfill ”plausible“ constraints are not generally acceptable to both firms and unions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jürgen Jerger & Jochen Michaelis, 2010. "The Fixed Wage Puzzle: Why Profit Sharing Is So Hard to Implement," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201013, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
  • Handle: RePEc:mar:magkse:201013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb02/research-groups/economics/macroeconomics/research/magks-joint-discussion-papers-in-economics/papers/2010-papers/13-2010_jerger.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jurgen Jerger & Jochen Michaelis, 1999. "Profit Sharing, Capital Formation and the NAIRU," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(2), pages 257-275, June.
    2. Michaelis, Jochen, 1997. "On the equivalence of profit and revenue sharing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 113-118, November.
    3. Erkki Koskela & Rune Stenbacka, 2006. "Flexible and Committed Profit Sharing with Wage Bargaining: Implications for Equilibrium Unemployment," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 87(2), pages 159-180, March.
    4. Benjamin Bental & Dominique Demougin, 2006. "Incentive Contracts And Total Factor Productivity," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(3), pages 1033-1055, August.
    5. Jerger, Jurgen & Michaelis, Jochen, 1999. " Profit Sharing, Capital Formation and the NAIRU," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(2), pages 257-275, June.
    6. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2005. "Individual Risk Attitudes: New Evidence from a Large, Representative, Experimentally-Validated Survey," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 511, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Carruth, Alan A & Oswald, Andrew J, 1985. "Miners' Wages in Post-war Britain: An Application of a Model of Trade Union Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(380), pages 1003-1020, December.
    8. Richard Watt, 2002. "Defending Expected Utility Theory: Comment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 227-229, Spring.
    9. Holmlund, Bertil, 1990. "Profit Sharing, Wage Bargaining, and Unemployment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 28(2), pages 257-268, April.
    10. McDonald, Ian M & Solow, Robert M, 1981. "Wage Bargaining and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 896-908, December.
    11. Farber, Henry S, 1978. "Individual Preferences and Union Wage Determination: The Case of the United Mine Workers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 923-942, October.
    12. Weitzman, Martin L, 1985. "The Simple Macroeconomics of Profit Sharing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(5), pages 937-953, December.
    13. repec:feb:framed:0019 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Kirstein, Roland & Kirstein, Annette, 2004. "Inefficient Intra-Firm Incentives Can Stabilize Cartels in Cournot Oligopolies," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2004-09, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    15. Maria Brouwer, 2005. "Managing Uncertainty through Profit Sharing Contracts from Medieval Italy to Silicon Valley," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 9(3), pages 237-255, September.
    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. Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Jaylson Jair Silveira, 2021. "Evolutionary microdynamics of employee profit sharing as productivity-enhancing device," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 417-449, April.
    2. Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Jaylson Jair da Silveira, 2018. "Macrodynamic Implications of Employee Profit Sharing as Effort Elicitation Device," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_02, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).

    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. Goerke, Laszlo, 2013. "Profit sharing and relative consumption," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 167-169.
    2. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2012. "The relationship between product market competition and unemployment with profit sharing," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 291-297.
    3. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2003. "Equilibrium Unemployment Under Negotiated Profit Sharing," IZA Discussion Papers 840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Erkki Koskela & Rune Stenbacka, 2002. "Equilibrium Unemployment and Credit Market Imperfections: The Critical Role of Labour Mobility," CESifo Working Paper Series 654, CESifo.
    5. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2001. "Equilibrium unemployment with credit and labour market imperfections," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 5/2001, Bank of Finland.
    6. Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Rob Euwals & Raun van Ooijen, 2010. "Private wealth and planned early retirement: A panel data analysis for the Netherlands 1994-2009," CPB Discussion Paper 160.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Drydakis Nick, 2011. "Greek unions' preferences: measuring trends in the field. An exploratory note on the period 2008–2009," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(4), pages 563-576, November.
    8. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2003. "Equilibrium Unemployment Under Negotiated Profit Sharing," IZA Discussion Papers 840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Erkki Koskela & Rune Stenbacka, 2004. "Profit Sharing, Credit Market Imperfections and Equilibrium Unemployment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(4), pages 677-701, December.
    10. Ronnie Schöb, 2002. "Public Profit Sharing," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(4), pages 523-542, November.
    11. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01cc08hf62w is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2000. "Capital structure, wage bargaining and employment," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 16/2000, Bank of Finland.
    13. Nicholas Lawson, 2011. "Is Collective Bargaining Pareto Efficient? A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 282-304, September.
    14. Jan König & Erkki Koskela, 2011. "Does International Outsourcing Really Lower Workers’ Income?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 21-38, March.
    15. Koskela, Erkki & Stenbacka, Rune, 2003. "Profit Sharing and Unemployment: An Approach with Bargaining and Efficiency Wage Economics," Discussion Papers 863, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    16. Nico van Leeuwen & Arjan Lejour, 2006. "Bilateral Services Trade Data and the GTAP database," CPB Memorandum 160.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Erkki Koskela & Rune Stenbacka, 2004. "Profit Sharing and Unemployment: An Approach with Bargaining and Efficiency-Wage Effects," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(3), pages 477-497, September.
    18. Arjan Lejour & Gerard Verweij, 2008. "Two quantative scenarios for the future of manufacturing in Europe," CPB Document 160.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Koskela, E. & Stenbacka, R., 2000. "Compensation and Bargaining with Entrepreneurship as the Outside Option," University of Helsinki, Department of Economics 479, Department of Economics.
    20. Rupayan Pal & Bibhas Saha, 2016. "Entry Threats and Inefficiency in ‘Efficient Bargaining’," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(3), pages 258-277, July.
    21. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald, 1995. "The Wage Curve," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026202375x, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Profit Sharing; Share Economy; Remuneration Systems;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

    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:mar:magkse:201013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bernd Hayo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vamarde.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.