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Pay Spread and Skewness, Employee Effort and Firm Productivity

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Abstract

We test predictions from theories of tournament, fairness and tastes for skewness about the effects of pay spread and skewness on employee effort and firm productivity. The data come from the population of 6,501 medium-to-large sized Danish private sector firms matched with all their employees during 1992-95. Potential simultaneity problems are addressed by instrumental variables provided by institutional variation in the income tax system. Differences in firm productivity effects between occupational groups and types of firms give support to the theories of fairness, tournaments and tastes for skewness. Only individual effort effects support tournament theory alone.

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  • Bingley, Paul & Eriksson, Tor, 2001. "Pay Spread and Skewness, Employee Effort and Firm Productivity," Working Papers 01-2, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:aareco:2001_002
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    Cited by:

    1. Zenu Sharma & Weihua Huang, 2014. "When do pay spreads influence firm value?," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(11), pages 723-737, June.
    2. Christian Grund & Niels Westergaard-Nielsen, 2008. "The Dispersion of Employees' Wage Increases and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 485-501, July.
    3. Egon Franck & Stephan Nuesch, 2011. "The effect of wage dispersion on team outcome and the way team outcome is produced," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(23), pages 3037-3049.
    4. Bernd Irlenbusch, 2006. "Experimental perspectives on incentives in organisations," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 14(1), pages 1-24, February.
    5. van den Berg, Gerard J. & van Vuuren, Aico, 2010. "The effect of search frictions on wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 875-885, December.
    6. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer-employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327.
    7. Jin‐Tan Liu & Meng‐Wen Tsou & Ping Wang, 2010. "Workforce Composition And Firm Productivity: Evidence From Taiwan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 1032-1047, October.
    8. Thierry Lallemand & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2005. "La dispersion salariale stimule-t-elle la performance d'une firme ?," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 63-70.
    9. Marco Van Herpen & Kees Cools & Mirjam Van Praag, 2006. "Wage Structure and the Incentive Effects of Promotions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 441-459, August.
    10. Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Mélanie Volral, 2011. "Does Wage Dispersion Make All Firms Productive?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(4), pages 455-489, September.
    11. Johan Stennek, 2020. "Why Unions Reduce Wage Inequality: A Theory of Domino Effects," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 1045-1072, July.
    12. Harbring, Christine & Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2003. "An experimental study on tournament design," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 443-464, August.
    13. Egon Franck & Stephan Nüesch, 2007. "Wage Dispersion and Team Performance - An Empirical Panel Analysis," Working Papers 0073, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU).
    14. Nils Braakmann, 2008. "Intra-firm wage inequality and firm performance – First evidence from German linked employer-employee-data," Working Paper Series in Economics 77, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    15. Dai, Yunhao & Kong, Dongmin & Xu, Jin, 2017. "Does fairness breed efficiency? Pay gap and firm productivity in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 406-422.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tournaments; Fairness; Skewness; Pay distribution; Matched employeremployee data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

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