How Responsive Are Wages to Firm-Specific Changes in Labour Demand? Evidence from Idiosyncratic Export Demand Shocks
中文摘要
企业调整工资是为了应对自身需求水平的变动，还是为了应对来自竞争对手雇主的竞争压力变动？我们研究了出口商在2008–2009年大衰退期间如何调整工资以应对意料之外的产品需求冲击。利用葡萄牙企业在衰退前出口装运的丰富数据，我们测度了衰退期间企业层面的出口需求冲击。我们表明，在企业层面构建的冲击不一定是企业特定的，它可以分解为影响产品市场所有生产者的共同成分，以及基于企业衰退前客户所在地影响市场内单个企业的异质性成分。我们证明，尽管这两种成分都影响了企业的产出及其工人的工资，但共同成分会从企业溢出到其劳动力市场的竞争对手，而异质性成分则不会。我们发现，10–15%的企业异质性需求会传递到其员工的工资增长中，但对留职率没有影响，这意味着工资显著依赖于非竞争性准租。此外，我们发现，当劳动力市场稀薄时，工资主要对内部劳动需求的变动做出反应；而当劳动力市场流动性强时，工资对其他雇主的竞争反应更大。这些结果表明，雇主设定工资的能力取决于劳动力市场潜在的竞争程度。
Abstract
Abstract Do firms adjust wages in response to changes in their own demand level or to changes in competitive pressure from rival employers? We study how exporters adjust wages in response to unexpected product demand shocks during the 2008–9 Great Recession. Using rich data on Portuguese firms’ pre-recession export shipments, we measure firm-level shocks to export demand during the Recession. We show that shocks constructed at the firm level are not necessarily firm-specific and can be decomposed into a common component affecting all producers in a product market and an idiosyncratic component affecting individual firms within markets based on the locations of their pre-recession customers. We demonstrate that while both components impact firms’ output and their workers’ wages, the common component spills over from firms to their labour market rivals, whereas the idiosyncratic component does not. We find that 10–15% of firms’ idiosyncratic demand passes through to their employees’ wage growth with no effect on retention rates, implying significant dependence of wages on noncompetitive quasi-rents. Moreover, we find that wages respond primarily to shifts in internal labour demand when labour markets are thin, but they respond more to competition from other employers when labour markets are fluid. These results indicate that employers’ ability to set wages hinges on the underlying competitiveness of the labour market.