IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-12-00007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Careers and wages in the dutch east india company

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Rei

    (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, inter-continental trade brought with it a novel form of organizing business: the multinational firm. Headquartered in Europe and operating in Asia, the success of the East India Companies depended largely on the management of overseas outposts, as well as their labor force. Using a dataset of 115 workers hired in Europe to work in Asia, I present the internal structure of civil servants careers and wages in the Dutch East India Company in the eighteenth century. This early modern firm mimics well current theories of internal labor markets: there are stable career paths, fast tracks in promotions, and sizable returns to tenure.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Rei, 2012. "Careers and wages in the dutch east india company," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 12-00007, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:vuecon-12-00007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/VUECON-12-00007.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Robert A. Shakotko, 1987. "Do Wages Rise with Job Seniority?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(3), pages 437-459.
    2. Joseph G. Altonji & Nicolas Williams, 2005. "Do Wages Rise with Job Seniority? A Reassessment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(3), pages 370-397, April.
    3. Edward P. Lazear & Robert L. Moore, 1984. "Incentives, Productivity, and Labor Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(2), pages 275-296.
    4. Topel, Robert H, 1991. "Specific Capital, Mobility, and Wages: Wages Rise with Job Seniority," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 145-176, February.
    5. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 881-919.
    6. Rei, Claudia, 2011. "Incentives in Merchant Empires: Portuguese and Dutch Labor Compensation," MPRA Paper 28712, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Abraham, Katharine G & Farber, Henry S, 1987. "Job Duration, Seniority, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 278-297, June.
    8. Gibbons, Robert & Waldman, Michael, 1999. "Careers in organizations: Theory and evidence," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 36, pages 2373-2437, Elsevier.
    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. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.
    2. Christian Pfeifer, 2009. "Adjustment of Deferred Compensation Schemes, Fairness Concerns, and Hiring of Older Workers," Working Paper Series in Economics 151, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    3. Ghosh, Suman, 2007. "Job mobility and careers in firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 603-621, June.
    4. Flabbi, Luca & Ichino, Andrea, 2001. "Productivity, seniority and wages: new evidence from personnel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 359-387, June.
    5. Dohmen, Thomas J., 2004. "Performance, seniority, and wages: formal salary systems and individual earnings profiles," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 741-763, December.
    6. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Pfeifer, Christian, 2009. "An Intra-Firm Perspective on Wage Profiles and Employment of Older Workers with Special Reference to Human Capital and Deferred Compensation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-413, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    9. Frederiksen, Anders & Halliday, Timothy J. & Koch, Alexander K., 2010. "What Do We Work For? An Anatomy of Pre- and Post-Tax Earnings Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 5298, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Jaime Arellano-Bover, 2024. "Career Consequences of Firm Heterogeneity for Young Workers: First Job and Firm Size," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 549-589.
    11. Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2010. "The effect of match quality and specific experience on career decisions and wage growth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 407-423, April.
    12. Nachum Sicherman, 1996. "Gender Differences in Departures from a Large Firm," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 49(3), pages 484-505, April.
    13. Alberto Bayo-Moriones & Jose E. Galdon-Sanchez & Maia Güell, 2010. "Is seniority-based pay used as a motivational device? Evidence from plant-level data," Research in Labor Economics, in: Jobs, Training, and Worker Well-being, pages 155-187, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Giovanni Sulis, 2014. "Wage Returns to Experience and Tenure for Young Men in Italy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(5), pages 559-588, November.
    15. Arnaud Lefranc, 2003. "On the sensitivity of returns to seniority to the measurement of earnings," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 24(7), pages 789-811, November.
    16. Burdett, Ken & Coles, Melvyn, 2010. "Wage/tenure contracts with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1408-1435, July.
    17. Bent Jesper Christensen & Rasmus Lentz & Dale T. Mortensen & George R. Neumann & Axel Werwatz, 2005. "On-the-Job Search and the Wage Distribution," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 31-58, January.
    18. Parent, Daniel, 2002. "Matching, human capital, and the covariance structure of earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 375-404, July.
    19. Kampkötter, Patrick & Sliwka, Dirk, 2014. "Wage premia for newly hired employees," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 45-60.
    20. Jesper Bagger & Fran?ois Fontaine & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2014. "Tenure, Experience, Human Capital, and Wages: A Tractable Equilibrium Search Model of Wage Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1551-1596, June.
    21. Arulampalam, Wiji, 2001. "Is Unemployment Really Scarring? Effects of Unemployment Experiences on Wages," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 585-606, November.
    22. Sullivan, Paul, 2010. "Empirical evidence on occupation and industry specific human capital," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 567-580, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    merchant empires; careers; returns to tenure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - 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:van:wpaper:vuecon-12-00007. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.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.