This paper considers the role mergers and acquisitions have on employment. First, it considers the importance of different aspects of compensation policy and human resource management practices for distinguishing acquired and acquiring firms. Second, it examines which individuals from which...

We address the relation between establishment wage differentials and worker flows, i.e., the churning rate and the quit rate. Our analysis is based on a linked employer-employee dataset covering the French private sector from 2002 to 2005. Our estimations support the hypothesis that wage premium...

We study the compensation package offered by family firms. Using matched employer-employee data for a sample of French establishments in the 2000s, we first show that family firms pay on average lower wages to their workers. This family/non-family wage gap is robust to controlling for several...

This paper shows that utility differences between the self-employed and employees increase with financial development. This effect is not explained by increased profits but by an increased value of non-monetary benefits, in particular job independence. We interpret these findings by building a...

We test the wealth maximization theory of quitting behavior on the German Socioeconomic Panel (1985-2003). With the interpretation of job satisfaction as an expression of the experienced preference for the present job against available alternatives, the propensity to stay in the present job is...

We emphasize the major influences of experienced utility gaps or regret, i.e. the difference between what happened and what might have happened, on job satisfaction. The main prediction that we test is that job satisfaction correlates with the wage gaps experienced in the past and present,...

This paper shows that utility differences between the self-employed and the employees increase with financial development. This effect is not explained by increased profits but by an increased value of non- monetary benefits, in particular job independence. We interpret these findings by...

This paper uses repeated cross-section data ISSP data from 1989, 1997 and 2005 to consider movements in job quality. It is first underlined that not having a job when you want one is a major source of low well-being. Second, job values have remained fairly stable over time, although workers seem...

This paper uses matched employer-employee panel data to show that individual job satisfaction is higher when other workers in the same establishment are better-paid. This runs contrary to a large literature which has found evidence of income comparisons in subjective well-being. We argue that...

This paper looks at the association between wage satisfaction and different notions of reference wage, based on a matched employer-employee dataset. It shows that workers' satisfaction depends on otherpeople's income in different ways. Relative income concerns are important, but we also find...