Rent-sharing under different bargaining regimes: Evidence from linked employer-employee data

In many European countries, the majority of workers have their wage rates determined directly by industry-level agreements. For some workers, industry agreements are supplemented by firm-specific agreements. Yet, the relative importance of individual company and industry agreements (in other words, the degree of centralisation) differs drastically across industries. The authors of this paper use unique linked employer-employee data from a 2003 survey in Belgium to examine how these bargaining features affect the extent of rent-sharing. Their results show that there is substantially more rent-s... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Rusinek, Michael
Rycx, François
Dokumenttyp: doc-type:workingPaper
Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
Verlag/Hrsg.: Brussels: National Bank of Belgium
Schlagwörter: ddc:330 / J31 / J51 / Rent-sharing / collective bargaining / propensity score matching / Tarifverhandlungen / Betriebsvereinbarung / Vergleich / Lohnbildung / Rententheorie / Belgien
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29312504
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://hdl.handle.net/10419/144364

In many European countries, the majority of workers have their wage rates determined directly by industry-level agreements. For some workers, industry agreements are supplemented by firm-specific agreements. Yet, the relative importance of individual company and industry agreements (in other words, the degree of centralisation) differs drastically across industries. The authors of this paper use unique linked employer-employee data from a 2003 survey in Belgium to examine how these bargaining features affect the extent of rent-sharing. Their results show that there is substantially more rent-sharing in decentralised than in centralised industries, even when controlling for the endogeneity of profits, for heterogeneity among workers and firms and for differences in characteristics between bargaining regimes. Moreover, in centralised industries, rent-sharing is found only for workers that are covered by a company agreement. The findings of this paper finally suggest that, within decentralised industries, both firm-specific and industry-wide bargaining generate rent-sharing to the same extent.