Within-firm Pay Inequality and Firm Performance

Using a unique dataset with administrative information on over two million matched employeremployee-year observations in Italy over the 1994-2000 period, we examine the causal effect of a quasi-exogenous shock to within-firm pay inequality on firm performance. Consistent with the fair wage-effort hy...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: De Vito, Antonio, Gómez, Juan Pedro
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Recursos:IE
Repositorio:Repositorio IE
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.ie.edu:20.500.14417/3819
Acesso em linha:https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4008989
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14417/3819
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Pay inequality
Firm performance
Fair wage-effort hypothesis
Unions
53 Ciencias Económicas::5311 Organización y dirección de empresas
ODS 10 - Reducción de las desigualdades
ODS 8 - Trabajo decente y crecimiento económico
Descrição
Resumo:Using a unique dataset with administrative information on over two million matched employeremployee-year observations in Italy over the 1994-2000 period, we examine the causal effect of a quasi-exogenous shock to within-firm pay inequality on firm performance. Consistent with the fair wage-effort hypothesis, pay dispersion increases among firms whose workers show lower sensitivity to pay inequality. These firms outperform similar firms whose workers show higher sensitivity to pay inequality. Our results unveil a shadow cost of relative wage concerns for firms and the potential adverse effects of imposing an ad hoc limit on firms’ pay dispersion.