François Rycx
- 21 October 2009
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1103Details
- Abstract
- This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering all the years from 1999 to 2005. Findings show the existence of large wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics and working conditions, employed in different sectors. These differentials are persistent and no particular downward or upward trend is observed. Further results indicate that ceteris paribus, workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more profitable firms. The time dimension of our matched employer-employee data allows us to instrument firms' profitability by its lagged value. The instrumented elasticity between wages and profits is found to be quite stable over time and varies between 0.034 and 0.043. It follows that Lester's range of pay due to rent sharing fluctuates between about 24 and 37 percent of the mean wage. This rent-sharing phenomenon accounts for a large fraction of the industry wage differentials. We find indeed that the magnitude, dispersion and significance of industry wage differentials decreases sharply when controlling for profits.
- JEL Code
- D31 : Microeconomics→Distribution→Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
J31 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs→Wage Level and Structure, Wage Differentials
J41 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Particular Labor Markets→Labor Contracts - Network
- Wage dynamics network
- 8 April 2011
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1325Details
- Abstract
- In the last decades, international trade has increased between industrialised countries and between high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on how international trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate the impact of international trade on wage dispersion in a small open economy. It is one of the few to: i) use detailed matched employer-employee data to compute industry wage premia and disaggregated industry level panel data to examine the impact of changes in exports and imports on changes in wage differentials, ii) examine the impact of imports according to the country of origin. Looking at the export side, we find a positive effect of exports on the industry wage premium. The results also show that import penetration from low
- JEL Code
- F16 : International Economics→Trade→Trade and Labor Market Interactions
J31 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs→Wage Level and Structure, Wage Differentials - Network
- Wage dynamics network
- 24 May 2016
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1908Details
- Abstract
- We study how unemployment affects the over-indebtedness of households using the new European Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). First, we assess the role of different labor market statuses (i.e. employed, unemployed, disabled, retired, etc.) and other household characteristics (i.e. demographics, housing status, household wealth and income, etc.) to determine the likelihood of over-indebtedness. We explore these relationships both at the Euro area level and through country-specific regressions. This approach captures country-specific institutional effects concerning all the different factors which can explain household indebtedness in its most severe form. We also examine the role that each country
- JEL Code
- D14 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Household Saving; Personal Finance
D91 : Microeconomics→Intertemporal Choice→Intertemporal Household Choice, Life Cycle Models and Saving
J12 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demographic Economics→Marriage, Marital Dissolution, Family Structure, Domestic Abuse - Network
- Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN)
- 21 December 2017
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2117Details
- Abstract
- This article takes advantage of access to confidential matched bank-firm data relative to the Belgian economy to investigate how employment decisions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been affected by credit constraints in the wake of the Great Recession. Variability in banks’ financial health is used as an exogenous determinant of firms’ access to credit. Estimates suggest that SMEs borrowing money from pre-crisis less healthy banks were significantly more likely to be affected by a credit constraint and, in turn, to adjust their labour input downwards than pre-crisis clients of more healthy banks. Yet, findings also indicate that employment consequences of credit shortages have been essentially detrimental for SMEs experiencing a negative demand shock or facing severe product market competition. Finally, results show that credit-constrained SMEs adjusted their workforce significantly more at the extensive margin than their non-constrained counterparts, but also that they relied more intensively on temporary layoff schemes.
- JEL Code
- D22 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
G01 : Financial Economics→General→Financial Crises
G21 : Financial Economics→Financial Institutions and Services→Banks, Depository Institutions, Micro Finance Institutions, Mortgages
J21 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
J23 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demand and Supply of Labor→Labor Demand - Network
- Wage dynamics network