IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rcorpf/v10y2021i2p273-305..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wages and Firm Performance: Evidence from the 2008 Financial Crisis
[The effect of wage bargains on the stock market value of the firm]

Author

Listed:
  • Paige Ouimet
  • Elena Simintzi

Abstract

We examine the effect of higher wages on firm performance during the 2008 financial crisis. To identify variation in wages, we rely on heterogeneity in the timing of long-term wage agreements for a sample of U.K. firms. We instrument for firms signing long-term agreements overlapping with the crisis by the presence of a contract signed in 2006 or earlier and expiring before September 2008. Treated firms not only paid higher wages but also realized greater labor productivity relative to control firms. These findings are consistent with the intuition that opportunity cost differentials between treated and control firms induce employees to exert higher effort. (JEL J41, J30, J24, G01)Received February 28, 2019; editorial decision July 8, 2020 by Editor Andrew Ellul. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Suggested Citation

  • Paige Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2021. "Wages and Firm Performance: Evidence from the 2008 Financial Crisis [The effect of wage bargains on the stock market value of the firm]," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(2), pages 273-305.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rcorpf:v:10:y:2021:i:2:p:273-305.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rcfs/cfaa019
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & De Philippis, Marta & Sette, Enrico & Viviano, Eliana, 2020. "The Long Run Earnings Effects of a Credit Market Disruption," IZA Discussion Papers 13185, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw & Christopher Stanton, 2016. "Making Do with Less: Working Harder during Recessions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 333-360.
    3. Hall, Robert E & Lazear, Edward P, 1984. "The Excess Sensitivity of Layoffs and Quits to Demand," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(2), pages 233-257, April.
    4. Oi, Walter Y. & Idson, Todd L., 1999. "Firm size and wages," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 2165-2214, Elsevier.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2018. "Time varying risk aversion," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 403-421.
    6. Andrew Ellul & Marco Pagano & Fabiano Schivardi, 2018. "Employment and Wage Insurance within Firms: Worldwide Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1298-1340.
    7. Timothy Besley & Robin Burgess, 2004. "Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 91-134.
    8. Edward P. Lazear, 2000. "Performance Pay and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1346-1361, December.
    9. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    10. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    11. Brown, Charles & Medoff, James, 1989. "The Employer Size-Wage Effect," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(5), pages 1027-1059, October.
    12. Dickens, William T & Katz, Lawrence F & Lang, Kevin & Summers, Lawrence H, 1989. "Employee Crime and the Monitoring Puzzle," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 331-347, July.
    13. Gordon, Donald F, 1974. "A Neo-Classical Theory of Keynesian Unemployment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(4), pages 431-459, December.
    14. Elena Simintzi & Vikrant Vig & Paolo Volpin, 2015. "Labor Protection and Leverage," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 561-591.
    15. Effrosyni Adamopoulou & Marta De Philippis & Enrico Sette & Eliana Viviano, 2020. "The Long-Term Earnings’ Effects of a Credit Market Disruption," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2021_169v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    16. Abowd, John M, 1989. "The Effect of Wage Bargains on the Stock Market Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 774-800, September.
    17. Duchin, Ran & Ozbas, Oguzhan & Sensoy, Berk A., 2010. "Costly external finance, corporate investment, and the subprime mortgage credit crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 418-435, September.
    18. Giroud, Xavier & Mueller, Holger M., 2010. "Does corporate governance matter in competitive industries?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 312-331, March.
    19. Uri Gneezy & John A List, 2006. "Putting Behavioral Economics to Work: Testing for Gift Exchange in Labor Markets Using Field Experiments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1365-1384, September.
    20. Stephen G. Bronars & Donald R. Deere, 1991. "The Threat of Unionization, the Use of Debt, and the Preservation of Shareholder Wealth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 231-254.
    21. Alexandre Mas, 2006. "Pay, Reference Points, and Police Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 783-821.
    22. Opler, Tim C & Titman, Sheridan, 1994. "Financial Distress and Corporate Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 1015-1040, July.
    23. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1986. "The Wage-Productivity Hypothesis: Its Economic Consequences and Policy Implications," NBER Working Papers 1976, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Beaudry, Paul & DiNardo, John, 1991. "The Effect of Implicit Contracts on the Movement of Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 665-688, August.
    25. Harry J. Holzer & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Job Queues and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 739-768.
    26. Martin Neil Baily, 1974. "Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(1), pages 37-50.
    27. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    28. John Asker & Joan Farre-Mensa & Alexander Ljungqvist, 2015. "Corporate Investment and Stock Market Listing: A Puzzle?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 342-390.
    29. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    30. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Christian Zehnder, 2006. "Fairness Perceptions and Reservation Wages—the Behavioral Effects of Minimum Wage Laws," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1347-1381.
    31. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & De Philippis, Marta & Sette, Enrico & Viviano, Eliana, 2020. "The Long Run Earnings Effects of a Credit Market Disruption," IZA Discussion Papers 13185, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    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. Nico Dewaelheyns & Cynthia Van Hulle & Yannick Van Landuyt & Mathias Verreydt, 2021. "Labor Contracts, Wages and SME Failure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-15, July.
    2. Wix, Carlo, 2017. "The long-run real effects of banking crises: Firm-level investment dynamics and the role of wage rigidity," SAFE Working Paper Series 189, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.

    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. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2011. "Great Expectations: Law, Employment Contracts, and Labor Market Performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 18, pages 1591-1696, Elsevier.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Christian Koch, 2021. "Can reference points explain wage rigidity? Experimental evidence," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 55(1), pages 1-17, December.
    4. Izumi Yokoyama & Takuya Obara, 2017. "Optimal combination of wage cuts and layoffs—the unexpected side effect of a performance-based payment system," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    6. Pagano, Marco, 2020. "Risk Sharing Within the Firm: A Primer," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 12(2), pages 117-198, October.
    7. Dessaint, Olivier & Golubov, Andrey & Volpin, Paolo, 2017. "Employment protection and takeovers," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 369-388.
    8. Bejarano, Hernán & Corgnet, Brice & Gómez-Miñambres, Joaquín, 2021. "Economic stability promotes gift-exchange in the workplace," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 374-398.
    9. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    10. Boris Hirsch & Thomas Zwick, 2015. "How Selective Are Real Wage Cuts? A Micro-analysis Using Linked Employer–Employee Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(4), pages 327-347, December.
    11. Vincenzo Pezone, 2023. "The Real Effects of Judicial Enforcement," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 889-933.
    12. Yicheng Wang, 2015. "Can Wage Dynamics in Long-term Employment Relationships Help Mitigate Financial Shocks?," 2015 Meeting Papers 1189, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Cecilia Navarra & Ermanno Tortia, 2014. "Employer Moral Hazard, Wage Rigidity, and Worker Cooperatives: A Theoretical Appraisal," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(3), pages 707-726.
    14. Fongoni, Marco & Dickson, Alex, 2015. "A Theory of Wage Setting Behavior," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-57, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    15. Grandmont, Jean-michel, 1989. "Keynesian issues and economic theory," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 8907, CEPREMAP.
    16. Guerrazzi, Marco & Meccheri, Nicola, 2012. "From wage rigidity to labour market institution rigidity: A turning-point in explaining unemployment?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 189-197.
    17. Rebitzer, James B. & Taylor, Lowell J., 2011. "Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 8, pages 701-772, Elsevier.
    18. Bewley, Truman F., 1998. "Why not cut pay?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 459-490, May.
    19. André Zylberberg, 1994. "Effort et contrats : quelques enseignements concernant le marché du travail," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 113(2), pages 1-20.
    20. Pezone, Vincenzo, 2023. "The real effects of judicial enforcement," Other publications TiSEM 08176032-a171-4f23-8dac-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    21. Veronique Genre & Karsten Kohn & Daphne Momferatou, 2011. "Understanding inter-industry wage structures in the euro area," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1299-1313.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

    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:oup:rcorpf:v:10:y:2021:i:2:p:273-305.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/rcfs .

    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.