Abstract
Personnel economics has suggested conflicting arguments about the impact of increased wage dispersion within firms on workers' productivity and firm performance. Besides giving more advancement incentives, bigger wage differentials might also give rise to less cooperation and more politicking amongst workers resulting in worse outcomes. We try to answer these questions using panel data for Austrian firms. As indicators for firm performance we use employment growth and standardized wages. For white-collar wages the following picture emerges: more dispersion leads to higher earnings up to some point where the relation changes its direction. For blue-collar wages we find a positive association between dispersion and standardized wages between firms, but no relation within firms over time. For employment growth the results are ambiguous.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Kyklos |
| Publication status | Published - 1999 |
Fields of science
- 405002 Agricultural economics
- 502 Economics
- 502001 Labour market policy
- 502002 Labour economics
- 502003 Foreign trade
- 502009 Corporate finance
- 502010 Public finance
- 502012 Industrial management
- 502013 Industrial economics
- 502018 Macroeconomics
- 502020 Market research
- 502021 Microeconomics
- 502025 Econometrics
- 502027 Political economy
- 502039 Structural policy
- 502042 Environmental economics
- 502046 Economic policy
- 502047 Economic theory
- 504014 Gender studies
- 506004 European integration
- 507016 Regional economy
- 303010 Health economics
