Identifying Rent-sharing Using Firms‘ Energy Input Mix
Matthias Mertens, Steffen Müller, Georg Neuschäffer
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 19,
2022
Abstract
We present causal evidence on the rent-sharing elasticity of German manufacturing firms. We develop a new firm-level Bartik instrument for firm rents that combines the firms‘ predetermined energy input mix with national energy carrier price changes. Reduced-form evidence shows that higher energy prices depress wages. Instrumental variable estimation yields a rent-sharing elasticity of approximately 0.20. Rent-sharing induced by energy price variation is asymmetric and driven by energy price increases, implying that workers do not benefit from energy price reductions but are harmed by price increases. The rent-sharing elasticity is substantially larger in small (0.26) than in large (0.17) firms.
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Globalisation, Productivity Growth, and Labour Compensation
Christian Dreger, Marius Fourné, Oliver Holtemöller
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 7,
2022
Abstract
Since the onset of globalisation, production activities have become increasingly fragmented and organised in global value chains (GVC). These networks facilitate trade in intermediaries across industrial sectors and countries and change the conditions for policies to respond to shocks. In this paper, we contribute to the understanding of the effects of GVC on productivity and labour shares in advanced and emerging economies. As indicators for globalisation we use the foreign share in intermediate inputs and the foreign share in value added, extracted from international input output tables. Estimates based on local projections reveal a positive relationship between globalisation and productivity. Moreover, we are able to reject the hypothesis that a higher degree of international integration in country-industry pairs is negatively associated with the change in the labour share for advanced countries.
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Transformation tables for administrative borders in Germany
Transformation tables for administrative borders in Germany The state has the ability...
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Demographic Change
Demographic Change Dossier ...
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Data
Transformation tables for administrative borders in Germany – data In order to...
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Alumni
IWH Alumni The IWH would like to stay in contact with its former employees. We...
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Labor in the Boardroom
Jörg Heining, Simon Jäger, Benjamin Schoefer
Quarterly Journal of Economics,
No. 2,
2021
Abstract
We estimate the wage effects of shared governance, or codetermination, in the form of a mandate of one-third of corporate board seats going to worker representatives. We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for stock corporations incorporated after August 1994, while it locked the mandate for the slightly older cohorts. Our research design compares firm cohorts incorporated before the reform and after; in a robustness check we draw on the analogous difference in unaffected firm types (LLCs). We find no effects of board-level codetermination on wages and the wage structure, even in firms with particularly flexible wages. The degree of rent sharing and the labor share are also unaffected. We reject that disinvestment could have offset wage effects through the canonical hold-up channel, as shared governance, if anything, increases capital formation.
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30 Years after Reunification, Gross Domestic Product has Served its Purpose as an Indicator
Oliver Holtemöller
Wirtschaftsdienst,
Konferenzband "30 Jahre Deutsche Einheit", März
2021
Abstract
The comparison of living conditions in East and West Germany is often based on the gross domestic product per inhabitant. However, this measure is not a good welfare indicator in itself. It can be assumed that, measured by the gross domestic product per inhabitant, there will be no further significant equalisation of economic power in East and West Germany in the foreseeable future. This is because the age structure of East Germany, i.e. the ratio of employed persons to inhabitants, is less favourable than in the West. On the other hand, if one looks at important welfare indicators such as consumption opportunities, life expectancy, leisure time and income inequality, living conditions in East and West Germany are more similar than the gross domestic product per inhabitant suggests. In the debates on the catching-up process of East Germany, more emphasis should therefore be placed on labour productivity as a measure of economic strength and on welfare indicators as a measure of the equalisation of living conditions.
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Involuntary Unemployment and the Business Cycle
Lawrence J. Christiano, Mathias Trabandt, Karl Walentin
Review of Economic Dynamics,
January
2021
Abstract
Can a model with limited labor market insurance explain standard macro and labor market data jointly? We construct a monetary model in which: i) the unemployed are worse off than the employed, i.e. unemployment is involuntary and ii) the labor force participation rate varies with the business cycle. To illustrate key features of our model, we start with the simplest possible framework. We then integrate the model into a medium-sized DSGE model and show that the resulting model does as well as existing models at accounting for the response of standard macroeconomic variables to monetary policy shocks and two technology shocks. In addition, the model does well at accounting for the response of the labor force and unemployment rate to these three shocks.
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Decentralisation of Collective Bargaining: A Path to Productivity?
Daniele Aglio, Filippo di Mauro
IWH-CompNet Discussion Papers,
No. 3,
2020
Abstract
Productivity developments have been rather divergent across EU countries and particularly between Central Eastern Europe (CEE) and elsewhere in the continent (non-CEE). How is such phenomenon related to wage bargaining institutions? Starting from the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) shock, we analyse whether the specific set-up of wage bargaining prevailing in non-CEE may have helped their respective firms to sustain productivity in the aftermath of the crisis. To tackle the issue, we merge the CompNet dataset – of firm-level based productivity indicators – with the Wage Dynamics Network (WDN) survey on wage bargaining institutions. We show that there is a substantial difference in the institutional set-up between the two above groups of countries. First, in CEE countries the bulk of the wage bargaining (some 60%) takes place outside collective bargaining schemes. Second, when a collective bargaining system is adopted in CEE countries, it is prevalently in the form of firm-level bargaining (i. e. the strongest form of decentralisation), while in non-CEE countries is mostly subject to multi-level bargaining (i. e. an intermediate regime, only moderately decentralised). On productivity impacts, we show that firms’ TFP in the non-CEE region appears to have benefitted from the chosen form of decentralisation, while no such effects are detectable in CEE countries. On the channels of transmission, we show that decentralisation in non-CEE countries is also negatively correlated with dismissals and with unit labour costs, suggesting that such collective bargaining structure may have helped to better match workers with firms’ needs.
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