IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/cml/incocp/2en-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

RDownward Wage Rigidities and Other Firms Responses to an Economic Slowdown: Evidence from a Survey of Colombian Firms

In: Inflationary Dynamics, Persistence, and Prices and Wages Formation

Author

Listed:
  • Ana María Iregui B.

    (Banco de la República, de Colombia)

  • ligia Alba Melo Becerra

    (Banco de la República, de Colombia)

  • María Teresa Ramírez Giraldo

    (Banco de la República, de Colombia)

Abstract

This paper uses a wage setting survey of 1,305 Colombian firms to explore the nature and sources of wage rigidities. This is the first study of a non-European emerging economy that uses evidence from a survey of firms to analyse this topic. The survey was carried out during the first half of 2009, when the Colombian economy was showing signs of a slowdown in economic activity and increasing unemployment. The sample is fully representative of the population under study. The results provide evidence of nominal and real downward wage rigidities in the country. The most important factor in not reducing base wages during an economic slowdown is to avoid the loss of more experienced and productive workers, which is related to the efficiency wage theory in its adverse selection version. In addition, ordered logit regressions were used to determine what factors are related to wage rigidities. The findings indicate that, in general, permanent contracts, workforce composition, labour intensity and the presence of collective agreements play an important role in explaining wage rigidities in the country.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Ana María Iregui B. & ligia Alba Melo Becerra & María Teresa Ramírez Giraldo, 2013. "RDownward Wage Rigidities and Other Firms Responses to an Economic Slowdown: Evidence from a Survey of Colombian Firms," Investigación Conjunta-Joint Research, in: Laura Inés D'Amato & Enrique López Enciso & María Teresa Ramírez Giraldo (ed.), Inflationary Dynamics, Persistence, and Prices and Wages Formation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 403-449, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos, CEMLA.
    • Handle: RePEc:cml:incocp:2en-15
    Note: Joint Research Program: XV Meeting of the Central Bank Researchers Network
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cemla.org/PDF/ic/2013-jrp-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan Babecký & Philip Du Caju & Theodora Kosma & Martina Lawless & Julián Messina & Tairi Rõõm, 2010. "Downward Nominal and Real Wage Rigidity: Survey Evidence from European Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(4), pages 884-910, December.
    2. Jan Babecký & Philip Du Caju & Theodora Kosma & Martina Lawless & Julián Messina & Tairi Rõõm, 2009. "The margins of labour cost adjustment: survey evidence from european firms," Working Papers 108, Bank of Greece.
    3. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2009. "Formación e incrementos de salarios en Colombia: Un estudio microeconómico a partir de una encuesta a nivel de firma," Borradores de Economia 6286, Banco de la Republica.
    4. Ana María Iregui B. & Ligia Alba Melo B. & María Teresa Ramírez G., 2009. "Are wages rigid in Colombia?: Empirical evidence based on a sample of wages at the firm level," Borradores de Economia 571i, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    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. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2010. "Incrementos y rigideces de los salarios en Colombia: Un estudio a partir de una encuesta," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, November.
    2. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2014. "Wage‐setting Decisions on Newly Hired Employees: Survey Evidence from Colombian Firms," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 231-246, April.
    3. Ana María iregui & Ligia Alba Melo B. & María Teresa Ramírez G., 2010. "Wage-setting Decisions on Newly Hired Employees:," Borradores de Economia 7808, Banco de la Republica.
    4. Iregui B., Ana Maria & Melo B., Ligia Alba & Ramírez G., María Teresa, 2012. "Wage Adjustment Practices and the Link between Price and Wages: Survey Evidence from Colombian Firms," Revista Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, CIE, June.
    5. Gustavo Hernández, 2012. "Payroll Taxes and the Labor Market: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 49(1), pages 99-123, May.
    6. Juan Carlos Segura Ortiz, 2016. "Sobre el uso de curvas de salarios en modelos empíricos de equilibrio económico. Resena e introducción computacional," Revista Equidad y Desarrollo, Universidad de la Salle, issue 26, pages 172-189, July.

    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. Ana María Iregui B. & Ligia Alba Melo B. & María Teresa Ramírez G., 2010. "Downward Wage Rigidities and Other Firms’ Responses to an Economic Slowdown: Evidence from a Survey of Colombian Firms," Borradores de Economia 612, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    2. Laura Inés D'Amato & Enrique López Enciso & María Teresa Ramírez Giraldo (ed.), 2013. "Dinámica inflacionaria, persistencia y formación de precios y salarios," Investigación Conjunta-Joint Research, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos, CEMLA, edition 1, volume 1, number 2, December.
    3. Ana Iregui & Ligia Melo & María Ramírez, 2012. "Wage Adjustment Practices and the Link between Price and Wages: Survey Evidence from Colombian Firms," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 76, pages 17-53.
    4. Bergin, Adele & Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus, 2012. "Explaining Changes in Earnings and Labour Costs During the Recession," Papers EC9, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    5. Emmanuel Dhyne & Martine Druant, 2010. "Wages, labor or prices : How do firms react to shocks ?," Working Paper Research 193, National Bank of Belgium.
    6. Cronin, Hugh & McGuinness, Seamus, 2014. "Examining the Relationship between Employee Resistance to Changes in Job Conditions and Wider Organisational Change: Evidence from Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 8441, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Du Caju, Philip & Kosma, Theodora & Lawless, Martina & Messina, Julián & Rõõm, Tairi, 2013. "Why Firms Avoid Cutting Wages: Survey Evidence from European Firms," Research Technical Papers 03/RT/13, Central Bank of Ireland.
    8. Ahrens, Steffen & Pirschel, Inske & Snower, Dennis J., 2014. "A theory of wage adjustment under loss aversion," Kiel Working Papers 1977, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Dias, Daniel A. & Marques, Carlos Robalo & Martins, Fernando, 2013. "Wage rigidity and employment adjustment at the firm level: Evidence from survey data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 40-49.
    10. Carlos Robalo Marques & Fernando Martins & Daniel Dias, 2012. "Labour cost-cutting strategies microeconomic evidence from survey data," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    11. Virbickas, Ernestas, 2010. "Wage and price setting behaviour of Lithuanian firms," Working Paper Series 1198, European Central Bank.
    12. Frank Smets, 2010. "Commetary: modeling inflation after the crisis," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 221-234.
    13. Philip Du Caju & Theodora Kosma & Martina Lawless & Julián Messina & Tairi Rõõm, 2015. "Why Firms Avoid Cutting Wages," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(4), pages 862-888, August.
    14. Ramadani, Gani & Naumovski, Nikola, 2014. "Wage and Price Setting in Macedonia: Evidence from Survey Data," MPRA Paper 70171, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2015.
    15. Ana María Iregui & Ligia Alba Melo & María Teresa Ramírez, 2010. "Incrementos y rigideces de los salarios en Colombia: Un estudio a partir de una encuesta," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, November.
    16. Theodoros Mitrakos & Panos Tsakloglou, 2010. "Analyzing and comparing the impact of alternative concepts of resources in distributional studies: Greece, 2004/5," Working Papers 111, Bank of Greece.
    17. Aurelijus Dabu�inskas & Tairi Room, 2011. "Survey evidence on wage and price setting in Estonia," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2011-06, Bank of Estonia, revised 27 May 2011.
    18. P. Du Caju & C. Fuss & L. Wintr, 2012. "Sectoral differences in downward real wage rigidity: workforce composition, institutions, technology and competition [Branchenspezifische Unterschiede in der Abwärtsreallohnstarrheit: Arbeitskrafts," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 45(1), pages 7-22, March.
    19. Fays, Valentine & Mahy, Benoît & Rycx, François, 2024. "Do migrants displace native-born workers on the labour market? The impact of workers' origin," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1420, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Aurelijus Dabusinskas & István Kónya & Stephen Millard, 2015. "How does labour market structure affect the response of economies to shocks?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1516, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    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:cml:incocp:2en-15. 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: Matias Ossandon Busch (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cemlamx.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.