DO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND LACK OF COMPETITION MATTER FOR WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT? EVIDENCE FROM PERSONNEL RECORDS OF A PRIVATIZED FIRM

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Melly, Blaise; Puhani, Patrick A.
• 署名单位: Brown University; Leibniz University Hannover; University of St Gallen
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12024
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 918-944
• 关键词: deregulation; earnings; MARKETS

摘要

Do public sector firm ownership and lack of competition matter for wages and employment? To address this question, we consider a large public-sector company that is privatized. Using personnel records, we find employment contract liberalization to generate relative wage losses for older, high-tenure, low-skilled, part-time workers, permanent residents, and women. Employment reductions mostly affect the same groups experiencing a wage decline. Overall, wage liberalization leads to an increase in wage inequality of between 6% and 9%, which-if applied to the whole public sector-would lead to a 52% to 76% closure of the inequality gap between the private and public sectors in Europe. Our results suggest that differences between public-and private-sector wage structures found in descriptive studies are to a large extent causal rather than the result of selection into these sectors and that public sector employment and career path regulations limit a firm's ability to maintain a competitive workforce.