Contractual Minimum Wages and Collective Bargaining: Italian Evidence from Forty Years of Data

Bernardo Fanfani

No 18051, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study documents the evolution of minimum wages bargained in Italian private sector collective contracts over a forty-year period (1983-2023). Minimum wages have grown in real levels over the last three decades, particularly among high-skilled occupations, but this growth has been partially eroded by the 2022-2023 inflation crisis. Nominal minimum wage growth is strongly correlated with past inflation and very weakly correlated with sectoral productivity growth and unemployment dynamics, which is consistent with strong coordination across industries and real wage rigidity. Increasing differences between high- and low-skilled occupation minimum wages can explain around one-third of the overall growth in the inequality of full-time equivalent daily wages that has occurred in Italy during the 1990s.

Keywords: industrial relations; wage rigidity; wage inequality; minimum wage; collective bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 J38 J52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-inv
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