1887

OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected labour market, social policy and migration studies prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language - English or French - with a summary in the other.

English, French

Productivity and wage effects of firm-level collective agreements

Evidence from Belgian linked panel data

How do firm-level collective agreements affect firm performance in a multi-level bargaining system? Using detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data, our findings show that firm agreements increase both wage costs and labour productivity (with respect to sector-level agreements). Relying on a recent approach developed by Bartolucci (2014), they also indicate that firm agreements exert a stronger impact on wages than on productivity, so that on average profitability is hampered. However, this rent-sharing effect only holds in sectors where firms are more concentrated. Firm agreements are thus mainly found to raise wages beyond labour productivity when the rents to be shared between workers and firms are relatively big. Overall, this suggests that firm-level agreements benefit both employers and employees – through higher productivity and wages – without being detrimental to firms’ gross profits.

English

JEL: C33: Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables / Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models; J31: Labor and Demographic Economics / Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs / Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials; J24: Labor and Demographic Economics / Demand and Supply of Labor / Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
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