Social Preferences, Skill Segregation, and Wage Dynamics Articles uri icon

publication date

  • January 2008

start page

  • 65

end page

  • 98

issue

  • 1

volume

  • 75

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0034-6527

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1467-937X

abstract

  • We study the earning structure and the equilibrium asignment of workers to firms in a model in which workers have social preferences, and skills are perfectly substitutable in production. Firms offer long-term contracts, and we allow for frictions in the labour market in the form of mobility costs. The model delivers specific predictions about the nature of worker flows, about the characteristic of workplace skill segregation, and about wage dispersion both within and cross firms. We shows that long-term contracts in the resence of social preferences associate within-firm wage dispersion with novel "internal labour market" features such as gradual promotions, productivity-unrelated wage increases, and downward wage flexibility. These three dynamic features lead to productivity-unrelated wage volatily within firms.