IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/46487.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Work incentive and productivity in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Pisa, M. Isabel
  • Sánchez, Rosario

Abstract

Work incentives are closely related to production performance. This paper presents evidence that the value added of a firm increases when relative labor costs rise, or the level of unemployment increases. Both circumstances imply evidence in favor of the efficiency wage model. This theory is consistent with the views of many managers and personal administrators, who tend to ascribe primary importance to wage setting as an incentive to increase effort. We use a micro panel data set of Spanish manufacturing firms, during the period 2004–2009, to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier of a firm’s value added and the inefficiency determinants. The data source is published in the Spanish Industrial Survey on Business Strategies (Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales, ESEE), collected by the Fundación SEPI.

Suggested Citation

  • Pisa, M. Isabel & Sánchez, Rosario, 2013. "Work incentive and productivity in Spain," MPRA Paper 46487, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:46487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/46487/1/MPRA_paper_46487.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wadhwani, Sushil B & Wall, Martin, 1991. "A Direct Test of the Efficiency Wage Model Using UK Micro-data," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 529-548, October.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1987. "The Causes and Consequences of the Dependence of Quality on Price," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 1-48, March.
    3. Levine, David I, 1992. "Can Wage Increases Pay for Themselves? Tests with a Production Function," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(414), pages 1102-1115, September.
    4. Subal Kumbhakar & Raquel Ortega-Argilés & Lesley Potters & Marco Vivarelli & Peter Voigt, 2012. "Corporate R&D and firm efficiency: evidence from Europe’s top R&D investors," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 125-140, April.
    5. JosÈ C. FariÒas & Sonia Ruano, 2004. "The Dynamics of Productivity: A Decompostion Approach Using Distribution Functions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 22(3_4), pages 237-251, April.
    6. Alan B. Krueger & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Efficiency Wages and the Wage Structure," NBER Working Papers 1952, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Huergo, Elena & Jaumandreu, Jordi, 2004. "Firms' age, process innovation and productivity growth," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 541-559, April.
    8. Jondrow, James & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Materov, Ivan S. & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 233-238, August.
    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. Rosario Sanchez & Luis Toharia, 2000. "Temporary workers and productivity: the case of Spain," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 583-591.
    11. Ana Martin-Marcos & Cristina Suarez-Galvez, 2000. "Technical efficiency of Spanish manufacturing firms: a panel data approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(10), pages 1249-1258.
    12. Hung-Jen Wang, 2002. "Heteroscedasticity and Non-Monotonic Efficiency Effects of a Stochastic Frontier Model," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 241-253, November.
    13. 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.
    14. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    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. Seref Saygili, 1998. "Is the Efficiency Wage Hypothesis Valid for Developing Countries? Evidence from the Turkish Cement Industry," Studies in Economics 9810, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    2. Rosario SÁNCHEZ-PÉREZ & M. Ángeles DÍAZ-MAYANS, 2013. "Are Large Innovative Firms More Efficient?," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 89-96.
    3. Sonia R Bhalotra, 1998. "Investigating Rationality in Wage-Setting," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 10, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    4. Francis Teal & Måns Söderbom, 2001. "Firm size and human capital as determinants of productivity and earnings," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2001-09, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Carter, Thomas J., 2005. "Money and efficiency wages: the neglected effect of employment on efficiency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 199-209, March.
    6. Andreas P. Georgiadis, 2006. "Is there a Wage-Supervision Trade-Off? Efficiency Wages Evidence From the 1990 British Workplace Industrial Relations Survey," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 06/152, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    7. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Campbell III, Carl M., 2006. "A model of the determinants of effort," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 215-237, March.
    9. M. Diaz & Rosario Sanchez, 2008. "Firm size and productivity in Spain: a stochastic frontier analysis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 315-323, March.
    10. Christopher F. Parmeter & Hung-Jen Wang & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2017. "Nonparametric estimation of the determinants of inefficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 205-221, June.
    11. Castiglione, Concetta & Infante, Davide & Zieba, Marta, 2023. "Public support for performing arts. Efficiency and productivity gains in eleven European countries," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    12. Bai, Peiwen & Cheng, Wenli, 2020. "Relative earnings and firm performance: Evidence from publicly-listed firms in China, 2005–2012," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 279-290.
    13. Ali D. Cagdas & Scott R. Jeffrey & Elwin G. Smith & Peter C. Boxall, 2016. "Environmental Stewardship and Technical Efficiency in Canadian Prairie Canola Production," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 64(3), pages 455-477, September.
    14. Tran, Kien C. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2009. "Estimation of nonparametric inefficiency effects stochastic frontier models with an application to British manufacturing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 904-909, September.
    15. Francis Teal & Måns Söderbom, 2002. "Does firm size really affect earnings?," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2002-08, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Orea, Luis, 2019. "The Econometric Measurement of Firms’ Efficiency," Efficiency Series Papers 2019/02, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    17. Bos, Jaap W.B. & Economidou, Claire & Sanders, Mark W.J.L., 2013. "Innovation over the industry life-cycle: Evidence from EU manufacturing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 78-91.
    18. Schmidt, Rouven & Kneib, Thomas, 2023. "Multivariate distributional stochastic frontier models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    19. Young Hoon Lee, 2009. "Frontier Models and their Application to the Sports Industry," Working Papers 0903, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy), revised 2009.
    20. Margarita Katsimi, 2008. "Training, Job Security And Incentive Wages," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(1), pages 67-78, February.
    21. Pierre Cahuc & André Zylberberg, 1994. "Que reste-t-il de la théorie du salaire d'efficience ?," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(3), pages 385-398.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    efficiency; value added; labor economic; industrial relations.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:46487. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.