Work Characteristics, Firm Size and Wages

Firm Size and Wages in China

While most studies find evidence of a wage-firm size premium, we find that larger firms in China actually pay lower wages. We also find that the most plausible explanation for this result is that larger firms in China employ a higher ratio of blue-collar workers.

Firm Size, Hours, and Wages in Search Equilibrium

This paper studies the size distribution of firms in a labor market with search friciton. It constructs a search-matching model in which a firm, if it wishes, engages costly on-the-job search to fill its second vacancy. The model is used to ask what influences a firm’s decision regarding whether to expand employment or to stay small. Firms submit take-it-or-leave-it wage offers to workers, and ...

Firm Size, Productivity, and Manager Wages: A Job Assignment Approach∗

Ability of managers and other nonproduction professionals is key for the productivity of firms. Hence, the assignment of heterogeneous nonproduction workers across firms determines the distribution of productivity. In turn, the transmission of productivity differences into profit differences — resulting from product market competition — determines firms’ willingness to pay for higher managerial...

Women’s Work and Wages*

Efficiency Wages and Union-Firm Bargaining

In this paper we combine the efficiency wage and union-firm bargaining approaches to wage determination to produce a unified model that encapsulates both. We find that combining efficiency wages and union-firm bargaining leads to higher wages, confirming an original insight of Summers. We also find that increases in bargaining power and monopoly power on the goods market have a stronger impact ...