中文摘要
我们研究雇佣合同的不完备性——即自由裁量且不可合同化的努力——如何影响雇主削减名义工资的决策。利用英国匹配的雇主-雇员工资数据并结合对管理者的调查,我们找到了支持一个程式化工资决定理论框架主要预测的证据:当管理者认为其员工在工作方式上拥有重大自由裁量权时,名义工资削减的可能性至多减半,不过通过信息共享使员工参与会削弱这一相关性。我们还描述了合同不完备性和工资削减在不同工作之间如何变化。这些发现提供了首个观测性定量证据,表明管理者对合同不完备性的信念可以解释他们对名义工资削减的犹豫。长期以来,经济学家一直基于轶事证据、定性调查以及实验室和田野实验对此进行猜想。
Abstract
We investigate how the incompleteness of an employment contract—discretionary and noncontractible effort—can affect an employer’s decision about cutting nominal wages. Using matched employer-employee payroll data from Great Britain linked to a survey of managers, we find support for the main predictions of a stylized theoretical framework of wage determination: nominal cuts are at most half as likely when managers believe that their employees have significant discretion over how they do their work, although the involvement of employees, via information sharing, reduces this correlation. We also describe how contract incompleteness and wage cuts vary across different jobs. These findings provide the first observational quantitative evidence that managerial beliefs about contractual incompleteness can account for their hesitancy over nominal wage cuts. This has long been conjectured by economists based on anecdotes, qualitative surveys, and laboratory and field experiments.