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Inter-industry wage differentials in EU countries: What do cross-country time-varying data add to the picture? National Bank of Belgium Working Paper, No. 189, April 2010

du Caju, Philip and Katay, Gabor and Lamo, Ana and Nicolitsas, Daphne and Poelhekke, Steven. (2010) Inter-industry wage differentials in EU countries: What do cross-country time-varying data add to the picture? National Bank of Belgium Working Paper, No. 189, April 2010. [Working Paper]

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    Abstract

    This paper documents the existence of inter-industry wage differentials across a large number of industries for eight EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain) at two different points in time (in general, 1995 and 2002). It then looks into possible explanations for the main patterns observed. The analysis uses the European Structure of Earnings Survey (SES), an internationally-harmonised matched employer-employee dataset, to estimate inter-industry wage differentials conditional on a rich set of employee, employer and job characteristics. After investigating the possibility that unobservable employee characteristics lie behind the conditional wage differentials, a hypothesis which cannot be accepted, the paper considers the role of institutional features, as well as industry structure and performance in explaining inter-industry wage differentials. The results suggest that inter-industry wage differentials are consistent with rent-sharing mechanisms and that rent-sharing is more likely in industries with firm-level collective agreements and with higher collective agreement coverage.

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    Item Type: Working Paper
    Uncontrolled Keywords: Inter-industry wage differentials; rent sharing; unobserved ability.
    Subjects for non-EU documents: Countries > Ireland
    Countries > Belgium
    Countries > Italy
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > employment/labour market > employment/unemployment
    Countries > Spain
    Countries > Netherlands
    Countries > Germany
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > employment/labour market > industrial/labour relations
    Countries > Greece
    Countries > Hungary
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > National Bank of Belgium (Brussels) > Working Papers
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 02 Aug 2010
    Page Range: p. 41
    Last Modified: 15 Feb 2011 18:33
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/14459

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