IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbb/reswpp/201006-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The incidence of nominal and real wage rigidity : An individual-based sectoral approach

Author

Listed:
  • Julián Messina

    (World Bank
    University of Girona)

  • Philip Du Caju

    (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department)

  • Cláudia Filipa Duarte

    (Banco de Portugal)

  • Niels Lynggård Hansen

    (Danmarks Nationalbank)

  • Mario Izquierdo

    (Banco de España)

Abstract

This paper presents estimates based on individual data on downward nominal and real wage rigidities for thirteen sectors in Belgium, Denmark, Spain and Portugal. Our methodology follows the approach recently developed for the International Wage Flexibility Project, whereby resistance to nominal and real wage cuts is measured through departures of observed individual wage-change histograms from an estimated counterfactual wage-change distribution that would have prevailed in the absence of any rigidity. We evaluate the role of worker and firm characteristics in shaping wage rigidities. We also confront our estimates of wage rigidities with structural features of the labour markets studied, such as the wage bargaining level, variable pay policy and the degree of product market competition. We find that the use of firm-level collective agreements in countries with rather centralised wage formation reduces the degree of real wage rigidity. This finding suggests that some degree of decentralisation within centralised countries allows firms to adjust wages downwards, when business conditions take a turn for the worse

Suggested Citation

  • Julián Messina & Philip Du Caju & Cláudia Filipa Duarte & Niels Lynggård Hansen & Mario Izquierdo, 2010. "The incidence of nominal and real wage rigidity : An individual-based sectoral approach," Working Paper Research 191, National Bank of Belgium.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbb:reswpp:201006-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/publications/wp/wp191en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christofides, Louis N. & Nearchou, Paris, 2007. "Real and nominal wage rigidities in collective bargaining agreements," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 695-715, August.
    2. David Card & Dean Hyslop, 1997. "Does Inflation "Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market"?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 71-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. William T. Dickens & Lorenz Goette & Erica L. Groshen & Steinar Holden & Julian Messina & Mark E. Schweitzer & Jarkko Turunen & Melanie E. Ward, 2007. "How Wages Change: Micro Evidence from the International Wage Flexibility Project," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 195-214, Spring.
    4. Philip Du Caju & Erwan Gautier & Daphne Momferatu & Melanie Ward-Warmedinger, 2009. "Institutional Features of Wage Bargaining in 23 European Countries, the US and Japan," Ekonomia, Cyprus Economic Society and University of Cyprus, vol. 12(2), pages 57-108, Winter.
    5. Campbell, Carl M, III, 1997. "The Variation in Wage Rigidity by Occupation and Union Status in the US," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 59(1), pages 133-147, February.
    6. Philip Du Caju & Catherine Fuss & Ladislav Wintr, 2009. "Understanding sectoral differences in downward real wage rigidity : workforce composition, institutions, technology and competition," Working Paper Research 156, National Bank of Belgium.
    7. Fagan, Gabriel & Messina, Julián, 2009. "Downward wage rigidity and optimal steady-state inflation," Working Paper Series 1048, European Central Bank.
    8. Ana Rute Cardoso & Pedro Portugal, 2005. "Contractual Wages and the Wage Cushion under Different Bargaining Settings," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 875-902, October.
    9. Abowd, John M & Card, David, 1989. "On the Covariance Structure of Earnings and Hours Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 411-445, March.
    10. repec:bla:scandj:v:97:y:1995:i:2:p:295-307 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Carl M. Campbell III & Kunal S. Kamlani, 1997. "The Reasons for Wage Rigidity: Evidence from a Survey of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 759-789.
    12. Pierre Biscourp & Orietta Dessy & Nathalie Fourcade & Hubert Kempf, 2005. "Les salaires sont-ils rigides ? Le cas de la France à la fin des années 1990 ; suivi d'un commentaire de Hubert Kempf," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 386(1), pages 59-89.
    13. Agell, Jonas & Bennmarker, Helge, 2007. "Wage incentives and wage rigidity: A representative view from within," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 347-369, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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. Lünnemann, Patrick & Wintr, Ladislav, 2010. "Downward wage rigidity and automatic wage indexation: evidence from monthly micro wage data," Working Paper Series 1269, European Central Bank.
    3. Philip Du Caju & Catherine Fuss & Ladislav Wintr, 2012. "Downward Wage Regidity for Different Workers and Firms," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 55(1), pages 5-32.
    4. Du Caju, Philip & Fuss, Catherine & Wintr, Ladislav, 2009. "Understanding sectoral differences in downward real wage rigidity: workforce composition, institutions, technology and competition," Working Paper Series 1006, European Central Bank.
    5. Montornès, Jérémi & Sauner-Leroy, Jacques-Bernard, 2009. "Wage-setting behavior in France: additional evidence from an ad-hoc survey," Working Paper Series 1102, European Central Bank.
    6. 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.
    7. Jeremi Montornes & Jacques-Bernard Sauner-Leroy, 2015. "Wage-setting Behavior in France: Additional Evidence from an Ad-hoc Survey," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 1(3), pages 5-23, May.
    8. Philip Du Caju & Catherine Fuss & Ladislav Wintr, 2007. "Downward wage rigidity for different workers and firms : an evaluation for Belgium using the IWFP procedure," Working Paper Research 124, National Bank of Belgium.
    9. Fougère, Denis & Gautier, Erwan & Roux, Sébastien, 2018. "Wage floor rigidity in industry-level agreements: Evidence from France," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 72-97.
    10. Jan Babecký & Clémence Berson & Ludmila Fadejeva & Ana Lamo & Petra Marotzke & Fernando Martins & Pawel Strzelecki, 2019. "Non-base wage components as a source of wage adaptability to shocks: evidence from European firms, 2010–2013," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Philip Du Caju & Theodora Kosma & Martina Lawless & Julian Messina & Tairi Rõõm, 2013. "Why firms avoid cutting wages: Survey evidence from European firms," Working Paper Research 251, National Bank of Belgium.
    12. Patrick Lünnemann & Ladislav Wintr, 2009. "Wages are flexible, aren?t they? evidence from monthly micro wage data," BCL working papers 39, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    13. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2011. "Monetary policy when wages are downwardly rigid: Friedman meets Tobin," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2064-2077.
    14. Dany Brouillette & Olena Kostyshyna & Natalia Kyui, 2018. "Downward nominal wage rigidity in Canada: Evidence from micro-level data," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 51(3), pages 968-1002, August.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. M. Ali Choudhary & Saima Mahmood & Sajawal Khan & Waqas Ahmed & Gylfi Zoega, 2013. "Sticky Wages in a Developing Country: Lessons from Structured Interviews in Pakistan," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0213, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    18. Fernando Martins & Jan Babecký, 2018. "Flexible wage components as a source of wage adaptability to shocks:evidence from European firms, 2010–2013," Working Papers w201808, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    19. 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 582, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    20. Barno Blaes, 2008. "Ausmaß und reale Konsequenzen nach unten starrer Nominallöhne," Working Papers 048, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage rigidity; wage-bargaining institutions;

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:nbb:reswpp:201006-30. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.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.