• Media type: Report; E-Book
  • Title: Labour market power and between-firm wage (in)equality
  • Contributor: Mertens, Matthias [Author]
  • Published: Halle (Saale): Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), 2021
  • Language: English
  • Keywords: monopsony ; labour market power ; rent-sharing ; J42 ; J31 ; superstar firms ; inequality ; L10
  • Origination:
  • Footnote: Diese Datenquelle enthält auch Bestandsnachweise, die nicht zu einem Volltext führen.
  • Description: I study how labour market power affects firm wage differences using German manufacturing sector firm-level data (1995-2016). In past decades, labour market power increasingly moderated rising between-firm wage inequality. This is because high-paying firms possess high and increasing labour market power and pay wages below competitive levels, whereas low-wage firms pay competitive wages. Over time, large, high-wage, high-productivity firms generate increasingly large labour market rents while selling on competitive product markets. This provides novel insights on why such "superstar firms" are profitable and successful. Using micro-aggregated data covering most economic sectors, I validate my results for ten other European countries. ; This draft: May 18, 2021
  • Access State: Open Access