In many European countries, wages are determined by collective bargaining agreements intended to improve wages and reduce inequality. We study the local and aggregate effects of collective bargaining in Italy and Germany. The two countries have similar geographical differences in firm...

The Saint Valentine's decree (1984) and the ensuing hard fought referendum (1985), which reduced the automatisms of scala mobile, started a process of redefinition of wage fixing in Italy, which culminated with the final abolition of scala mobile (1992) and the approval of Protocollo d'intesa...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

As China exhibited unprecedented rapid economic growth ever since its reform andopenness, the development and sources of labor productivity has gradually come to theforefront. This paper studies the development and the source of labor productivity in 31Chinese provinces during the period of...

In this paper we show that vocational training is an important determinant of productivitygrowth. We construct a multi-country, multi-sectoral dataset, and quantify empirically to whatextent vocational training has contributed to increase the growth rate of labor productivity inEurope between...

The impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestically owned firms in developingcountries has been widely debated in the literature. It has been argued that FDI providesaccess to advanced technologies and other intangible assets which may spill over to the hostcountry and allow domestic...

This paper examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively andsystematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value.Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution ofentrepreneurs to the economy in...

We analyse how changes in international trade integration affect productivity and the functional income distribution. To account for endogeneity, we construct a leave-out measure for international trade integration for country-industry pairs using international input-output tables. First, we...

Implementing performance pay requires that workers' output be measured. When measurement costs differ among firms, those with a measurement cost advantage choose to implement performance pay. They attract the best workers, and both the level and variability of compensation are higher at these...

Firms hiring fresh graduates face uncertainty on the future productivity of workers. Intuitively, one expects starting wages to reflect this. Formal analysis supports the intuition. We use the dispersion of exam grades within a field of education as an indicator of the heterogeneity that...