Declining Business Dynamism in Europe: The Role of Shocks, Market Power, and Technology
Filippo Biondi, Sergio Inferrera, Matthias Mertens, Javier Miranda
IWH-CompNet Discussion Papers,
No. 2,
2023
Abstract
We study the changing patterns of business dynamism in Europe after 2000 using novel micro-aggregated data that we collect for 19 European countries. In all of them, we document a decline in job reallocation rates that concerns most economic sectors. This is mainly driven by dynamics within sectors, size classes, and age classes rather than by compositional changes. Large and mature firms show the strongest decline in job reallocation rates. Simultaneously, the shares of employment and sales of young firms decline. Consistent with US evidence, firms’ employment changes have become less responsive to productivity. However, the dispersion of firms’ productivity shocks has decreased too. To enhance our understanding of these patterns, we derive a firm-level framework that relates changes in firms’ productivity, market power, and technology to job reallocation and firms’ responsiveness.
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Declining Business Dynamism in Europe: The Role of Shocks, Market Power, and Technology
Filippo Biondi, Sergio Inferrera, Matthias Mertens, Javier Miranda
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 19,
2023
Abstract
We study the changing patterns of business dynamism in Europe after 2000 using novel micro-aggregated data that we collect for 19 European countries. In all of them, we document a decline in job reallocation rates that concerns most economic sectors. This is mainly driven by dynamics within sectors, size classes, and age classes rather than by compositional changes. Large and mature firms show the strongest decline in job reallocation rates. Simultaneously, the shares of employment and sales of young firms decline. Consistent with US evidence, firms’ employment changes have become less responsive to productivity. However, the dispersion of firms’ productivity shocks has decreased too. To enhance our understanding of these patterns, we derive a firm-level framework that relates changes in firms’ productivity, market power, and technology to job reallocation and firms’ responsiveness.
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Do Larger Firms Exert More Market Power? Markups and Markdowns along the Size Distribution
Matthias Mertens, Bernardo Mottironi
IWH-CompNet Discussion Papers,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
Several models posit a positive cross-sectional correlation between markups and firm size, which characterizes misallocation, factor shares, and gains from trade. Accounting for labor market power in markup estimation, we find instead that larger firms have lower product markups but higher wage markdowns. The negative markup-size correlation turns positive when conditioning on markdowns, suggesting interactions between product and labor market power. Our findings are robust to common criticism (e.g., price bias, non-neutral technology) and hold across 19 European countries. We discuss possible mechanisms and resulting implications, highlighting the importance of studying input and output market power in a unified framework.
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Do Larger Firms Exert More Market Power? Markups and Markdowns along the Size Distribution
Matthias Mertens, Bernardo Mottironi
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
Several models posit a positive cross-sectional correlation between markups and firm size, which characterizes misallocation, factor shares, and gains from trade. Accounting for labor market power in markup estimation, we find instead that larger firms have lower product markups but higher wage markdowns. The negative markup-size correlation turns positive when conditioning on markdowns, suggesting interactions between product and labor market power. Our findings are robust to common criticism (e.g., price bias, non-neutral technology) and hold across 19 European countries. We discuss possible mechanisms and resulting implications, highlighting the importance of studying input and output market power in a unified framework.
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Paying Outsourced Labor: Direct Evidence from Linked Temp Agency-Worker-Client Data
Andres Drenik, Simon Jäger, Pascuel Plotkin, Benjamin Schoefer
Review of Economics and Statistics,
No. 1,
2023
Abstract
We estimate how much firms differentiate pay premia between regular and outsourced workers in temp agency work arrangements. We leverage unique Argentinian administrative data that feature links between user firms (the workplaces where temp workers perform their labor) and temp agencies (their formal employers). We estimate that a high-wage user firm that pays a regular worker a 10% premium pays a temp worker on average only a 4.9% premium, compared to what these workers would earn in a low-wage user firm in their respective work arrangements—the midpoint between the benchmarks for insiders (one) and the competitive spot-labor market (zero).
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The Gender Reveal: The Effect of Sons on Young Fathers’ Criminal Behavior and Labor Market Activities
Kabir Dasgupta, Andre Diegmann, Tom Kirchmaier, Alexander Plum
Labour Economics,
October
2022
Abstract
Based on New Zealand’s administrative court charges data, we document child gender-specific differences in future criminal behavior of young fathers. The deterrent impact of having a son on the future likelihood of receiving convictions persists for as long as ten years post-childbirth. Utilizing population-wide monthly tax registers and Census data, we provide key insights into the role model hypothesis. We show that young fathers with a son have (i) a higher likelihood of being in employment, (ii) higher wages and salaries, (iii) lower benefit dependency, (iv) better qualification, and (v) a higher likelihood of being in a partnered relationship.
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Organised Labour, Labour Market Imperfections, and Employer Wage Premia
Sabien Dobbelaere, Boris Hirsch, Steffen Müller, Georg Neuschäffer
IWH Discussion Papers,
No. 20,
2022
Abstract
This paper examines how collective bargaining through unions and workplace co-determination through works councils relate to labour market imperfections and how labour market imperfections relate to employer wage premia. Based on representative German plant data for the years 1999–2016, we document that 70% of employers pay wages below the marginal revenue product of labour and 30% pay wages above. We further find that the prevalence of wage mark-downs is significantly smaller when organised labour is present and that the ratio of wages to the marginal revenue product of labour is significantly bigger. Finally, we document a close link between labour market imperfections and mean employer wage premia, that is wage differences between employers corrected for worker sorting.
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The Urban Wage Premium in Imperfect Labour Markets
Boris Hirsch, Elke J. Jahn, Alan Manning, Michael Oberfichtner
Journal of Human Resources,
April
2022
Abstract
Using administrative data for West Germany, this paper investigates whether part of the urban wage premium stems from greater competition in denser labor markets. We show that employers possess less wage-setting power in denser markets. We further document that an important part of the observed urban wage premia can be explained by greater competition in denser labor markets.
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Do Digital Information Technologies Help Unemployed Job Seekers Find a Job? Evidence from the Broadband Internet Expansion in Germany
Nicole Gürtzgen, Andre Diegmann, Laura Pohlan, Gerard J. van den Berg
European Economic Review,
February
2021
Abstract
This paper studies effects of the introduction of a new digital mass medium on reemployment of unemployed job seekers. We combine data on high-speed (broadband) internet availability at the local level with German individual register data. We address endogeneity by exploiting technological peculiarities that affected the roll-out of high-speed internet. The results show that high-speed internet improves reemployment rates after the first months in unemployment. This is confirmed by complementary analyses with individual survey data suggesting that internet access increases online job search and the number of job interviews after a few months in unemployment.
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