IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oec/elsaab/241-en.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Workforce composition, productivity and pay: The role of firms in wage inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Chiara Criscuolo
  • Alexander Hijzen
  • Cyrille Schwellnus
  • Erling Barth
  • Wen-Hao Chen
  • Richard Fabling
  • Priscilla Fialho
  • Katarzyna Grabska-Romagosa
  • Ryo Kambayashi
  • Timo Leidecker
  • Oskar Nordström Skans
  • Capucine Riom
  • Duncan Roth
  • Balazs Stadler
  • Richard Upward
  • Wouter Zwysen

Abstract

In many OECD countries, low productivity growth has coincided with rising inequality. Widening wage and productivity gaps between firms may have contributed to both developments. This paper uses a new harmonised cross-country linked employer-employee dataset for 14 OECD countries to analyse the role of firms in wage inequality. The main finding is that, on average across countries, changes in the dispersion of average wages between firms explain about half of the changes in overall wage inequality. Two thirds of these changes in between-firm wage inequality are accounted for by changes in productivity-related premia that firms pay their workers above common market wages. The remaining third can be attributed to changes in workforce composition, including the sorting of high-skilled workers into high-paying firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Criscuolo & Alexander Hijzen & Cyrille Schwellnus & Erling Barth & Wen-Hao Chen & Richard Fabling & Priscilla Fialho & Katarzyna Grabska-Romagosa & Ryo Kambayashi & Timo Leidecker & Oskar Nords, 2020. "Workforce composition, productivity and pay: The role of firms in wage inequality," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 241, OECD Publishing.
    • Handle: RePEc:oec:elsaab:241-en
    DOI: 10.1787/0830227e-en
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1787/0830227e-en
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1787/0830227e-en?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christina Håkanson & Erik Lindqvist & Jonas Vlachos, 2021. "Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 56(2), pages 512-538.
    2. Jae Song & David J Price & Fatih Guvenen & Nicholas Bloom & Till von Wachter, 2019. "Firming Up Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 1-50.
    3. Peter Gal & Giuseppe Nicoletti & Theodore Renault & Stéphane Sorbe & Christina Timiliotis, 2019. "Digitalisation and productivity: In search of the holy grail – Firm-level empirical evidence from EU countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1533, OECD Publishing.
    4. Deborah Goldschmidt & Johannes F. Schmieder, 2017. "The Rise of Domestic Outsourcing and the Evolution of the German Wage Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1165-1217.
    5. Bajgar, Matej & Berlingieri, Giuseppe & Calligaris, Sara & Criscuolo, Chiara & Timmis, Jonathan, 2019. "Industry concentration in Europe and North America," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103427, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    7. Dan Andrews & Alessandro Saia, 2017. "Coping with creative destruction: Reducing the costs of firm exit," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1353, OECD Publishing.
    8. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    9. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2015. "Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labour Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 621-646, May.
    10. Juan Carluccio & Denis Fougère & Erwan Gautier, 2015. "Trade, Wages and Collective Bargaining: Evidence from France," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 803-837, May.
    11. Matej Bajgar & Giuseppe Berlingieri & Sara Calligaris & Chiara Criscuolo & Jonathan Timmis, 2019. "Industry concentration in Europe and North America," CEP Discussion Papers dp1654, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Katarína Borovičková & Robert Shimer, 2017. "High Wage Workers Work for High Wage Firms," NBER Working Papers 24074, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F. Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2017. "Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 180-185, May.
    14. Elise Coudin & Sophie Maillard & Maxime Tô, 2018. "Family, Firms and the Gender Wage Gap in France," Working Papers 2018-09, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    15. Christian Dustmann & Johannes Ludsteck & Uta Schönberg, 2009. "Revisiting the German Wage Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 843-881.
    16. Garnero, Andrea & Hijzen, Alexander & Martin, Sébastien, 2019. "More unequal, but more mobile? Earnings inequality and mobility in OECD countries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 26-35.
    17. Erling Barth & James Davis & Richard B. Freeman, 2018. "Augmenting the Human Capital Earnings Equation with Measures of Where People Work," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 71-97.
    18. Oskar Nordström Skans & Per-Anders Edin & Bertil Holmlund, 2009. "Wage Dispersion Between and Within Plants: Sweden 1985-2000," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison, pages 217-260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. David Card & Jörg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Workplace Heterogeneity and the Rise of West German Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 967-1015.
    20. John Van Reenen, 2018. "Increasing differences between firms: market power and the macro-economy," CEP Discussion Papers dp1576, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    21. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Marc-Andreas Muendler & Stephen J. Redding, 2017. "Trade and Inequality: From Theory to Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 357-405.
    22. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Patrick Kline, 2016. "Bargaining, Sorting, and the Gender Wage Gap: Quantifying the Impact of Firms on the Relative Pay of Women," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 633-686.
    23. Lars Vilhuber, 2009. "Adjusting Imperfect Data: Overview and Case Studies," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison, pages 59-80, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Nicole Guertzgen, 2009. "Rent‐sharing and Collective Bargaining Coverage: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(2), pages 323-349, June.
    25. repec:oup:restud:v:84:y::i:1:p:357-405. is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Lazear, Edward P. & Shaw, Kathryn L. (ed.), 2009. "The Structure of Wages," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226470504, August.
    27. Nicoletti, Giuseppe & von Rueden, Christina & Andrews, Dan, 2020. "Digital technology diffusion: A matter of capabilities, incentives or both?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    28. Edward P. Lazear, 2019. "Productivity and Wages: Common Factors and Idiosyncrasies Across Countries and Industries," NBER Working Papers 26428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Cyrille Schwellnus & Mathilde Pak & Pierre-Alain Pionnier & Elena Crivellaro, 2018. "Labour share developments over the past two decades: The role of technological progress, globalisation and “winner-takes-most” dynamics," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1503, OECD Publishing.
    30. Åsa Johansson & Øystein Bieltvedt Skeie & Stéphane Sorbe & Carlo Menon, 2017. "Tax planning by multinational firms: Firm-level evidence from a cross-country database," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1355, OECD Publishing.
    31. Dan Andrews & Chiara Criscuolo & Peter N. Gal, 2016. "The Best versus the Rest: The Global Productivity Slowdown, Divergence across Firms and the Role of Public Policy," OECD Productivity Working Papers 5, OECD Publishing.
    32. Erling Barth & Alex Bryson & James C. Davis & Richard Freeman, 2016. "It's Where You Work: Increases in the Dispersion of Earnings across Establishments and Individuals in the United States," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S2), pages 67-97.
    33. De la Roca, Jorge, 2017. "Selection in initial and return migration: Evidence from moves across Spanish cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 33-53.
    34. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2009. "Wage Structure, Raises and Mobility: An Introduction to International Comparisons of the Structure of Wages Within and Across Firms," NBER Chapters, in: The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison, pages 1-57, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw, 2009. "The Structure of Wages: An International Comparison," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number laze08-1.
    36. Müge Adalet McGowan & Dan Andrews, 2016. "Insolvency Regimes And Productivity Growth: A Framework For Analysis," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1309, OECD Publishing.
    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. Bertheau, Antoine & Acabbi, Edoardo & Barcelo, Cristina & Gulyas, Andreas & Lombardi, Stefano & Saggio, Raffaele, 2022. "The Unequal Cost of Job Loss across Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 15033, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Wouter Zwysen, 2024. "Working apart: Domestic outsourcing in Europe," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 30(2), pages 221-241, June.
    3. Berlingieri, Giuseppe & Blanchenay, Patrick & Criscuolo, Chiara, 2024. "The great divergence(s)," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    4. Han Bu & Zhou Xun & Sha Cai, 2024. "Big data and inter-firm wage disparities: theory and evidence from China," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1-36, August.
    5. Forth, John & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2022. "Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1110, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    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. Cortes, Matias & Lerche, Adrian & Schönberg, Uta & Tschopp, Jeanne, 2023. "Technological Change, Firm Heterogeneity and Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 16070, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Niklas Engbom & Christian Moser, 2022. "Earnings Inequality and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3803-3847, December.
    3. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2024. "Firm Productivity, Wages, and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 85-119.
    4. Matteo G. Richiardi & Luis Valenzuela, 2024. "Firm heterogeneity and the aggregate labour share," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(1), pages 66-101, March.
    5. Magda, Iga & Gromadzki, Jan & Moriconi, Simone, 2021. "Firms and wage inequality in Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 499-552.
    6. Berlingieri, Giuseppe & Blanchenay, Patrick & Criscuolo, Chiara, 2024. "The great divergence(s)," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
    7. Freund, L. B., 2022. "Superstar Teams: The Micro Origins and Macro Implications of Coworker Complementarities," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2276, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    8. Colja Schneck, 2021. "Trends in Wage Inequality in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 253-289, August.
    9. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    10. Daniel Baumgarten & Gabriel Felbermayr & Sybille Lehwald, 2020. "Dissecting Between‐Plant and Within‐Plant Wage Dispersion: Evidence from Germany," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 85-122, January.
    11. Schaefer, Daniel & Singleton, Carl, 2017. "Recent changes in British wage inequality: Evidence from firms and occupations," MPRA Paper 76744, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Donald Tomaskovic-Devey & Silvia Maja Melzer, 2020. "The organizational production of earnings inequalities, Germany 1995–2010," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-22, September.
    13. Winkler, Erwin, 2020. "Diverging paths: Labor reallocation, sorting, and wage inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224535, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Daniel Schaefer & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Recent Changes in British Wage Inequality: Evidence from Large Firms and Occupations," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(1), pages 100-125, February.
    15. Jae Song & David J Price & Fatih Guvenen & Nicholas Bloom & Till von Wachter, 2019. "Firming Up Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 1-50.
    16. Yannick Bormans & Angelos Theodorakopoulos, 2023. "Productivity dispersion, wage dispersion and superstar firms," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(360), pages 1145-1172, October.
    17. Huitfeldt, Ingrid & Kostøl, Andreas R. & Nimczik, Jan & Weber, Andrea, 2023. "Internal labor markets: A worker flow approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 661-688.
    18. Paul Brandily & Camille Hémet & Clément Malgouyres, 2022. "Understanding the Reallocation of Displaced Workers to Firms," Working Papers halshs-03082302, HAL.
    19. Bertay, Ata & Carreño Bustos, José & Huizinga, Harry & Uras, Burak & Vellekoop, N., 2022. "Technological Change and the Finance Wage Premium," Discussion Paper 2022-002, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    20. Sarah Louise Jewell & Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2020. "Who Works for Whom and the UK Gender Pay Gap," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(1), pages 50-81, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    firm wage premium; productivity; wage inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:oec:elsaab:241-en. 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/eloecfr.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.