The institutional wage adjustment to import competition: evidence from the Italian collective bargaining system

Alessia Matano, Paolo Naticchioni and Francesco Vona

Oxford Economic Papers, 2023, vol. 75, issue 3, 631-651

Abstract: A growing body of research has contributed to understanding the labour market and political effects of globalization. This article explores an overlooked feature of trade-induced adjustments in the labour market: the institutional aspect. We take advantage of the Italian collectively bargained minimum wage system, which is based on a two-tier structure, whereby the first tier entails setting minimum wages at the national contract level. Using an instrumental variable strategy and exploiting variations in contract-level exposure to trade, we find for the 1995–2003 period that, on average, the surge in imports decreased contractual minimum wages by 1.5%. This impact increases in the share of unskilled workers employed in the contract. This negative institutional effect contrasts with a non-significant effect of trade on total wages, with the latter becoming positive and large only for highly skilled workers.

JEL-codes: F16 J24 J31 J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpac033 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:75:y:2023:i:3:p:631-651.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().