When investigating the effects of federal grants on the behavior of lower-level governments, it is hard to defend the handling of grants as an exogenous factor affecting local governments; federal governments often set grants based on characteristics and performance of local governments. In this...

Firms have multiple options at the time of adjusting their wage bills. However, previous literature has mainly focused on base wages. We broaden the analysis beyond downward rigidity in base wages by investigating the use of other margins of labour cost adjustment at the firm level. Using data...

This paper investigates the wage and price setting behaviour of Lithuanian firms on the basis of an ad hoc survey “On Price and Wage Setting” undertaken by the Bank of Lithuania. The paper provides survey evidence on the frequency of wage and price changes. The frequency of wage changes...

In 2007 and 2008 Polish governments introduced a series of reforms which led to a substantial reduction in the tax wedge (in Polish: klin) on labour. We show that when considered together the package of introduced reforms brought much greater reductions in the tax burden compared to a widely...

In 2007 and 2008 Polish governments introduced a series of reforms which led to a substantial reduction in the tax 'wedge' (in Polish: 'klin') on labour. The mean ATR on total labour cost was reduced from 41.6% to 34.0%. We show that when considered together the package of introduced reforms...

Firms have multiple options at the time of adjusting their wage bills. However, previous literature has mainly focused on base wages. We broaden the analysis beyond downward rigidity in base wages by investigating the use of other margins of labour cost adjustment at the firm level. Using data...

The rarity with which firms reduce nominal wages has been frequently observed, even in the face of considerable negative economic shocks. This paper uses a unique survey of fourteen European countries to ask firms directly about the incidence of wage cuts and to assess the relevance of a range...