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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Hirsch, Boris; Lentge, Philipp; Schnabel, Claus |
| Abstract: | In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from these union agreements, which workers are not covered anymore, and what this means for their wages. We show that about 9 percent of workers in plants with collective agreements do not enjoy individual coverage (and thus the union wage) anymore. Econometric analyses with unconditional quantile regressions and firm-fixed-effects estimations demonstrate that not being individually covered by a collective agreement has serious wage implications for most workers. Low-wage non-union workers and those at low hierarchy levels particularly suffer since employers abstain from extending union wages to them in order to pay lower wages. This jeopardizes unions' goal of protecting all disadvantaged workers. |
| Keywords: | collective bargaining,union wage,uncovered workers,Germany |
| JEL: | J31 J53 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:faulre:123&r= |
| By: | Altunbas, Yener; Gambacorta, Leonardo; Reghezza, Alessio; Velliscig, Giulio |
| Abstract: | We match firm-corporate governance characteristics with firm-level carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions over the period 2009-2019 to study the relationship between gender diversity in the workplace and firm carbon emissions. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in the percentage of female managers within the firm leads to a 0.5% decrease in CO2 emissions. We document that this effect is statically significant, also when controlling for institutional differences caused by more patriarchal and hierarchical cultures and religions. At the same time, we show that gender diversity at the managerial level has stronger mitigating effects on climate change if females are also well-represented outside the organization, e.g. in political institutions and civil society organizations. Finally, we find that, after the Paris Agreement, firms with greater gender diversity reduced their CO2 emissions by about 5% more than firms with more male managers. JEL Classification: G12, G23, G30, D62, Q54 |
| Keywords: | carbon emissions, female managers, global warming, green economics, Paris agreement |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20222650&r= |
| By: | Rettl, Daniel A. (University of Georgia); Schandlbauer, Alexander (University of Southern Denmark); Trandafir, Mircea (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | When workers are in bad health, their productivity declines. We investigate whether the health of employees affects firm performance, taking advantage of the severity of the seasonal influenza seasons as a source of exogenous variation. We find that firms whose employees are particularly affected by influenza experience reductions in their return on assets and in net income. These results are not driven by firm-specific characteristics, as we find the same relationship between influenza severity and firm performance within firms, at the establishment level. We also document substantial heterogeneity in the effects, with small firms and labor-intensive firms driving our findings. This suggests that labor is an important driver of firm performance and that capital-intensive and larger firms are better able to shift resources in response to temporary shocks to their workforce. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that smaller firms may be better off subsidizing vaccination programs for their employees. |
| Keywords: | seasonal influenza, health shock, firm performance |
| JEL: | L25 I12 G30 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15147&r= |
| By: | Demirović, Melisa; Rogers, Jonathan; Robbins, Blaine G (New York University Abu Dhabi) |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in wage negotiations is a popular explanation for why the gender gap in pay persists in the United States. In this study, we use data from an artificial wage negotiation experiment (N = 330) to interrogate the gender-negotiation link, and to test whether gender role attitudes (GRAs) moderate this association. Our experiment yields three principal discoveries. First, men are more likely to select into negotiations than women, but this effect varies by GRAs. As GRAs become more traditional, men enter negotiations at a much higher rate than women, but for non-traditional GRAs we observe no gender differences in selection. Second, while men and women are proficient at knowing when to negotiate, men and women are much less proficient when they harbor traditional GRAs. Third, profits are equivalent for men and women, and traditional men are no more effective than women—regardless of their GRAs—at securing higher profits. Our findings suggest that traditional women should “lean-in”, and that traditional men should “lean-out”. |
| Date: | 2022–03–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7esb9&r= |
| By: | Thomas Schneider; Philip Strahan; Jun Yang |
| Abstract: | Relative performance evaluation (RPE) intensifies competitive pressure by tying executive compensation to the profits of rivals. We show that these contracts make loan syndication harder by reducing banks’ willingness to participate in loans underwritten by banks named in their RPE contracts. Lead arranger banks which are more frequently named in RPE hold larger shares of the loans they syndicate, and their borrowers face higher spreads. These banks, in turn, lose market share to banks less likely to be named in RPE. Our results highlight the tension between the normal benefits of competition versus the need for cooperation in loan syndication. |
| JEL: | G20 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29859&r= |
| By: | Adamecz-Völgyi, Anna (UCL Institute of Education); Shure, Nikki (University College London) |
| Abstract: | There is a large gender gap in the probability of being in a "top job" in mid-career. Top jobs bring higher earnings, and also have more job security and better career trajectories. Recent literature has raised the possibility that some of this gap may be attributable to women not "leaning in" while men are more overconfident in their abilities. We use longitudinal data from childhood into mid-career and construct a measure of overconfidence using multiple measures of objective cognitive ability and subjective estimated ability. Our measure confirms previous findings that men are more overconfident than women. We then use linear regression and decomposition techniques to account for the gender gap in top jobs including our measure of overconfidence. Our results show that men being more overconfident explains 5-11 percent of the gender gap in top job employment. This contribution is statistically significant although small in magnitude. This indicates that while overconfidence matters for gender inequality in the labor market and has implications for how firms recruit and promote workers, other individual, structural, and societal factors play a larger role. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, inequality, overconfidence, labor market |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15145&r= |