Performance pay, trade and inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pupato, German
• 署名单位: Toronto Metropolitan University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2017.10.001
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 478-504
• 关键词: performance pay; Within-firm wage inequality; moral hazard; firm heterogeneity; trade liberalization

摘要

This paper introduces moral hazard into a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to study wage inequality between homogeneous workers. Optimal performance pay contracts yield non-degenerate wage distributions among co-workers, enabling the analysis of two conceptually distinct and empirically relevant dimensions of wage dispersion: between-firm and within-firm inequality. The latter remains virtually unexplored in the literature. As an application, I characterize analytically the impact of trade liberalization on within-firm inequality, highlighting a new channel through which international trade can contribute to residual wage dispersion. To motivate the theory, I show that the model is consistent with cross-firm empirical patterns in residual wage dispersion and performance pay using nationally representative, matched employer-employee data from Canada. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.