This paper is concerned with the question of whether top income earners are permanently there or only temporarily receive the highest incomes. How much mobility is there at the top of the income distribution, and how has mobility changed over time? The paper makes both a methodological and an...

In this paper we develop a novel semi-nonparametric panel copula model with external covariates for the study of wage rank dynamics. We focus on nonlinear dependence between the current and lagged worker's ranks in the wage residuals distribution, conditionally on individual characteristics. We...

This paper examines the impact of performance-related pay on wage differentials within firms. Our theoretical framework predicts that, compared to a fixed pay system, pay schemes based on individual effort increase within-firm wage inequality, while group-based bonuses have minor effects on wage...

Collective agreements have played a central role in the system of wage formation in Norway for more than fifty years. Although the degree of coordination achieved has been variable, pattern wage bargaining has been a mainstay of the system. We investigate the degree of invariance in wage...

In this paper we attempt to investigate the effect on income inequality of some recent trends in the labour market, changes in regulations of temporary positions and the surge in immigration in many EU-countries. The empirical results show that less strict regulations of temporary positions and...

Pervasive skill-biased technological changes, probably from trade in computer technology, have visualized the pros and cons of wage setting centralization in small open economies. Skill mismatch has increased in countries with wage rigidity. As a small open economy with centralized wage setting,...

This paper investigates how recent immigration inflows from 2002 to 2008 have affected wages in Switzerland. This period is of particular interest as it marks the time during which the bilateral agreement with the EU on the free cross-border movement of workers has been effective. Since...

Norway experienced a high immigration flow after the EEA directive in 2004 stating workers right to free movement within the European Union and EEA-countries. There is no clear consensus in the literature on how immigration affects native wages, but some studies using Norwegian micro data have...

This paper develops aggregate relations for a matching market of heterogeneous suppliers and demanders. The point of departure is the analysis of two-sided matching found in Roth and Sotomayor (1990). Under particular assumptions about the distribution of preferences, the present paper derives...

This study investigates whether excess effort to climb a career ladder justifies policy interventions. The answer depends on whether the government is able to levy a higher tax burden on career workers than on non-career workers. Both a tax on top income aimed at lowering the rewards of...