As far as wage disparity and its social, political and economic consequences are concerned, one can easily see that it is a popular topic on which many studies and research have been conducted. The recent financial turmoil drew the people`s attention on the issue of wage disparity, and the people started to discuss this issue on the equity and fairness grounds, but the only thing that economists can do is to examine the economic consequences of the wide wage disparities. It is much easier to conduct a study on the issue of wage disparity by using the data on the professional sport teams due to their several advantages and in this paper I chose to study the relationship between intra-team wage dispersion and teams` performance by using data on randomly chosen 16 teams from the National Football League over the sample period of 2000-2008. First of all, a general introduction to the issue takes place. Then a detailed theoretical background is provided. After mentioning some previous evidence and methodology, empirical results are revealed. Those results show us that Ramaswamy`s and Rowthorn`s Damage Potential Hypothesis is supported over Levine`s Cohesiveness Hypothesis by the data.

<p>As far as wage disparity and its social, political and economic consequences are concerned, one can easily see that it is a popular topic on which many studies and research have been conducted. The recent financial turmoil drew the people`s attention on the issue of wage disparity, and the people started to discuss this issue on the equity and fairness grounds, but the only thing that economists can do is to examine the economic consequences of the wide wage disparities. It is much easier to conduct a study on the issue of wage disparity by using the data on the professional sport teams due to their several advantages and in this paper I chose to study the relationship between intra-team wage dispersion and teams` performance by using data on randomly chosen 16 teams from the National Football League over the sample period of 2000-2008. First of all, a general introduction to the issue takes place. Then a detailed theoretical background is provided. After mentioning some previous evidence and methodology, empirical results are revealed. Those results show us that Ramaswamy`s and Rowthorn`s Damage Potential Hypothesis is supported over Levine`s Cohesiveness Hypothesis by the data.</p>

Existing research in labor economics has rarely accounted for non-profit status in examining wage dispersion. Contrariwise, in non-profit sector research, little has been said so far about (intra-organizational) wage dispersion. Scattered findings from previous work indicate that wage dispersion is smaller in non-profit organizations (NPOs) as compared to for-profits (FPOs). Fairness perceptions and high moral ideals of workers within this sector are often cited as reasons for this assumption. Empirically, however, the reasons for inter-sectoral differences remain obscure. In our analysis, we concentrate on specific characteristics of NPOs as compared to FPOs. More specifically, this paper is to address the question if volunteer workers, donations and public subsidies influence the within-firm wage dispersion in NPOs. In order to answer this research question we use Austrian matched employer-employee data collected in 2006. We estimate an instrument variable regression and find that NPOs that employ volunteer workers and NPOs with a more even mix between paid and unpaid staff display smaller wage dispersion. Donations and public subsidies augment the wage dispersion. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Institut für Sozialpolitik

Cette thèse a pour thème central les liens entre les décisions de formation et de licenciement, ainsi que l'efficience économique de ces décisions. La formation est ici entendue comme formation spécifique à l'entreprise dont les salariés bénéficient au cours de leur vie professionnelle via leur employeur. Le premier chapitre évalue, à partir de données individuelles, les rendements de la formation en France, à la fois sur le plan de la mobilité (emploi-emploi et emploi-chômage) qu'en termes de gain salarial. Le deuxième chapitre examine comment une protection de l'emploi, différenciée selon l'âge des salariés, affecte la volonté des entrepreneurs de former leurs travailleurs. Le troisième chapitre met en évidence que les décisions de formation et de destruction d'emploi sont fortement complémentaires. Dès lors, des subventions à la formation ciblées par niveau de qualification et combinées à des taxes sur le licenciement (également ciblées par niveau de qualification) doivent être mises en place pour que ces décisions soient socialement optimales. Le quatrième chapitre analyse comment le risque de licenciement, différencié entre les travailleurs d'un même niveau de qualification selon leur niveau d'aptitude, peut être source d'inégalités salariales. Enfin, le dernier chapitre souligne que, face aux disparités salariales, de formation et de risque de licenciement entre les salariés d'un même niveau de qualification, les subventions à la formation et les taxes sur le licenciement, nécessaires à l'efficacité économique, devraient non seulement différer selon la catégorie socioprofessionnelle, mais également au sein de chacune. / This thesis consists of five essays on firm-specific training investments, job destruction and inefficiencies issues. Both the positive aspects of firm-specific training and job destructions and the normative implications are considered. From French panel data, Essay 1 brings evidence on the empirical effect of formal training on workers’ mobility on the labor market, as well as on wages. Essay 2 identifies the effect of an exogenous change in employment protection among older workers on firms’ incentives to provide training. In light of theoretical considerations, this seems to be an important concern since employment protection may have an age-differentiated impact due to its anticipation. Essay 3 shows how complementary firms’ firing and training decisions are. Therefore, we suggest that skill-directed training subsidies and firing taxes (skill-directed as well) should be implemented to reach the optimal allocation in an imperfect labor market. Essay 4 highlights the role of firms’ decisions about reservation productivity in the wage dispersion analysis. Finally, the framework in Essay 5 generates a wage distribution, transition rates from employment to unemployment and average training amounts per worker by wage interval at the same time. In particular, we show that workers with the same skill level are paid and trained differently and have different employment to unemployment transitions rates. Therefore, we suggest that training subsidies and firing taxes should not only be skill-directed, but should also differ within a skill group of workers.

Cette thèse propose trois essais empiriques consacrés à l'analyse des grèves en France, à partir de données récentes d'établissements et d'entreprises et l'utilisation de méthodes économétriques variées. Très peu d'études quantitatives, d'inspiration économique, ont été menées sur ce sujet en France, contrastant avec une littérature anglo-saxonne particulièrement étendue sur l'analyse économique des grèves. Le déclin de la syndicalisation et de l'action collective des salariés a néanmoins conduit à un déplacement progressif de l'intérêt des chercheurs anglo-saxons, en économie du travail et en relations industrielles (ou industrial relations), vers l'étude des relations de travail individuelles entre salariés et employeurs. L'individualisation des emplois et des relations de travail dans les entreprises est souvent considérée comme orthogonale à l'action collective des salariés. Le déclin des grèves et autres formes collectives de conflit a pu notamment être associé, dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, à une augmentation des manifestations individuelles de conflit et de la dispersion ou inégalité globale des salaires dans les entreprises. Nous proposons, dans cette thèse, une analyse originale des grèves en France, en lien avec ces deux aspects, caractéristiques de l'individualisation des emplois et des relations de travail dans les entreprises. Le premier chapitre s'intéresse à la relation existant entre l'expression collective de conflit, dont les grèves, et des formes individuelles de conflit croissantes dans les établissements français, i.e. les recours aux prud'hommes et l'action disciplinaire. L'analyse conduite révèle une relation de substitution entre l'expression collective de conflit et le recours aux prud'hommes des salariés, tandis que les grèves et autres conflits collectifs tendent parallèlement à s'associer à un recours accru des employeurs à l'action disciplinaire. Le deuxième chapitre considère explicitement cette relation, plus spécifiquement entre les grèves et l'absentéisme des salariés, dans l'estimation et l'analyse de l'effet des grèves sur la productivité du travail des entreprises françaises. L'occurrence de grèves sur la période récente passée tend à s'associer à un gain de productivité du travail dans les entreprises concernées par une faible fréquence de grèves, sous condition que celles-ci soient associées à une expression individuelle de mécontentement des salariés (i.e. absentéisme) plus faible.Le troisième chapitre examine le rôle de la dispersion salariale intra-firme dans les variations de l'activité de grève entre les établissements français. Si une forte dispersion des salaires au sein de la main d'oeuvre s'avère être un frein à la mobilisation collective des salariés dans des grèves, elle apparaît néanmoins être à l'origine d'une activité de grève plus soutenue, en termes de fréquence et de durée des grèves, dans certains établissements. / This thesis consists of three essays on the analysis of labor strikes in France, using recent data on workplaces and firms and applying various econometric methods. Very few quantitative studies, in economics, have been conducted on this issue in France, in contrast with a particularly large Anglo-saxon literature on the economic analysis of strikes. The decline of unionization and collective action of employees led however to a progressive shift in the interest of Anglo-saxon researchers, in labor economics and industrial relations, towards the study of individual labor relations between employees and employers. The individualization of jobs and labor relations is often considered as orthogonal to employee collective action. The decline of strikes and other collective disputes may have been linked, in the Anglo-saxon literature, to an increase in individual expressions of conflict and in the overall wage dispersion or inequality within firms. We propose, in this thesis, an original analysis of strikes in France, in connection with these two facets, linked to the individualization of jobs and labor relations in firms. The first chapter documents the relationship between the collective expression of conflict, including strikes, and growing individual forms of conflict in French workplaces, i.e. Employment Tribunal (or prud'hommes) claims and disciplinary action. It is shown that the collective expression of conflict and Employment Tribunal claims are substitutes in French workplaces, while strikes and other collective disputes increase the employer use of disciplinary action. The second chapter deals explicitly with this relationship, more specifically between strikes and employee absenteeism, in estimating and analyzing the effect of strikes on labor productivity in French firms. Strike occurrence during the recent past period tends to be associated with a surplus in labor productivity in firms affected by a low strike frequency, conditionally to a weaker employee expression of discontent (i.e. absenteeism). The third chapter discusses the role of within-firm wage dispersion in variations of strike activity between French workplaces. If a great wage dispersion among the workforce proves to be an obstacle to employee collective organization in strikes, it seems however to result in a more intense strike activity, in terms of frequency and of duration, in some workplaces.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the incentives regarding the education decisions, resulting from a minimum wage over the period 2005-2014. The question is investigated by comparing the changes in the wage dispersion and upper secondary graduation rate in 17 OECD countries. And then, by comparing the changes in the bites of the minimum wage and educational attainment for upper secondary students in 11 OECD countries, where minimum wages are regulated by law. The majority of previous research seem to point out a negative educational effect of minimum wages. However, this paper finds no evidence that increasing the minimum wage can decrease the high school graduation rate. A possible explanation is that the correlation between the higher employment prospect and educational attainment can create incentives for young individuals to undergo education. This study seems to be the first to investigate the educational effects of minimum wages using internationally comparative data.

This thesis consists of four self-contained studies in empirical labor economics. Micro data on both employers and workers are used to analyze the questions asked in the essays. By using disaggregated information, issues related to firm and individual heterogeneity can be studied.The first essay, The Impact of Temporary Contracts on Gross Job and Worker Flows (with Mahmood Arai), examines job and worker flow dynamics for temporary and permanent contracts. The micro approach to job flows concerns changes in employment at the plant or firm level. Data used in earlier research on gross labor flows do not allow for a distinction between different types of employment contracts (an exception is Abowd et al. (1999). This distinction is especially important in Europe since several European countries discriminate between permanent and temporary contracts in their employment legislation.The data contain quarterly information on the stock of permanent and temporary contracts, as well as direct information on hires and separations for permanent and temporary workers. The information is from a representative sample of around 10,000 Swedish private establishments.The results indicate that temporary contracts, covering only around 10 percent of all contracts, stand for half of all gross job (and worker) flows. This means that gross job (and worker) flow rates for temporary contracts are around 10 times larger than job (and worker) flows for permanent contracts. Our results imply that job reallocation associated with temporary contracts is acyclical in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors. For permanent contracts, job reallocation only exhibits a countercyclical pattern in manufacturing, characterized by a low fraction of temporary contracts. Services employing a higher fraction of temporary contracts exhibit no cyclical pattern in job reallocation, implying that establishments in services use temporary contracts as an adjustment buffer and can adjust its labor input more smoothly.The share of temporary contracts varies with the industry structure and changes as a result of sectoral shifts. This implies that cross-country comparisons, as well as studies of the dynamics of job and worker flows, based on aggregated time-series data, can be distorted by the impact of the fraction of temporary labor on gross labor flows. This, in turn, makes the distinction between permanent and temporary contracts crucial in analyzing job and worker flows, especially when labor protection laws discriminate between short-and long-term employment contracts. The second essay, Wage Dispersion and Allocation of Jobs, investigates the relationship between job turnover and the distribution of wages. One possible explanation for similar labor reallocation rates across labor markets with very different employment-protection legislations is related to differences in wage setting institutions. Bertola and Rogerson (1997) argue that although job-security laws lead to lower job flows, their impact might be reduced if differences in wage-setting institutions have opposite effects. Bertola and Rogerson’s conclusion is that when labor protection laws and wages are jointly considered, the result might very well be that job flows in countries with high adjustment costs and a compressed wage structure mimic those in countries with low adjustment costs and decentralized wages.Using establishment data on job turnover and wages for a panel of around 10,000 establishments in the Swedish private sector, the relationship between wage compression and job reallocation is studied at the industry level.Estimating industry fixed-effects models for 14 two-digit industries yield results indicating large sector differences regarding the effect of the degree of wage dispersion on job reallocation. In accordance with the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis, this effect is positive in the manufacturing sector. Running separate regressions for job creation and job destruction shows a negative and significant effect of wage dispersion on job destruction, whereas it is insignificant in the job-creation equation. These results are in accordance with wages being more rigid downwards than upwards. The quantitative effect of the impact of wage dispersion on job turnover is limited, however. A one standard deviation increase in wage dispersion reduces the total job reallocation by around 10 percent. Turning to the non-manufacturing sector, the Bertola and Rogerson hypothesis is not supported.Further results include (i) a strong positive effect of the industry-share of temporary employees on job reallocation and (ii) a negative relationship between the use of overtime and job turnover.In the third essay, Wages, Profits and Individual Unemployment Risk: Evidence from Matched Worker-Firm Data (with Mahmood Arai), the impact of firm performance on individual wages is studied. Several studies have found a positive and significant effect of profits on wages. The most widely suggested interpretation for this phenomenon is that employers and employees engage in rent-sharing, thereby splitting the profits created between themselves.The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of rent-sharing and the impact of individual and aggregated unemployment risk on wages of individual workers. We use a sample of over 170,000 Swedish employees for 1991 and 1995 matched with their employing firm’s profits and the unemployment registers. The matched data contain detailed information on individual characteristics, including their unemployment experience during 1992-1995 as well as annual profits as reported in the firms’ balance-sheet reports.The contribution of this paper is that it provides evidence on the wage determination, based on disaggregated individual and firm data dealing with the problems of firm and worker heterogeneity, and the endogeneity of profits. Our results imply positive effects of profits on wages, both in 1991 and 1995. The reported elasticities imply that the wage inequality in Sweden due to the spread in profits is as high as 13% of the mean wages in 1991, according to Lester’s range of pay. These correlations are robust for controlling for time-invariant unobserved individual- and firm characteristics.Using firm-reported short-term product market elasticity and the number of competitors as instruments for profits suggest Lester’s measure of wage inequality due to profits to be as high as 50% of the mean wages.Finally, we investigate the impact of individual heterogeneity with respect to unemployment risk that might also affect wages. We include the individuals’ unemployment event record in our regressions, and our results confirm that individuals with a higher unemployment risk also have lower wages. Including aggregated measures along with individual unemployment risk in our estimations show results suggesting that there exists a robust negative correlation between unemployment risk and wages at various aggregation levels.The final essay, Pay Inequality and Firm Performance: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data, tests several implications from tournament models on the same matched employer-employee data set as in essay 3.According to a variety of theories, the wage distribution both within and between firms can have important effects on individual productivity and firm performance. One argument for high wage differentials, based on incentive effects, is found in Lazear and Rosen’s (1981) tournament theory. Higher wage differentials lead to higher individual effort, and are therefore productivity enhancing. This, in turn, suggests that there is a positive relationship between wage dispersion and productivity. The opposite relationship is found in theories stressing fairness and cooperation between co-workers.For white-collar workers, the results show a positive effect of intra-firm pay spread on firm performance for 1991 and 1995. This applies to different measures of wage dispersion, capturing both raw differences and differences corrected for the fact that part of the wage spread is due to differences in human capital accumulation. To take firm heterogeneity into account, difference equations are estimated on a panel of firms. Once more, consistent with tournament theory, a positive and significant effect of wage dispersion on profits is found. The results for managers are based on information on about 10,000 managers. For various measures of wage dispersion and specifications, a positive and significant association between managerial pay and profits is found. No support is found for the hypothesis of a positive relationship between the number of managers (contestants) and wage spread. Instead, the results show a negative and significant effect of the number of executives and pay spread among managers.Finally, consistent with tournament theory, higher wage dispersion is found in firms operating in volatile product markets characterized by a high degree of output uncertainty. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2002