Relative Wage Positions and Quit Behavior: New Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

Christian Pfeifer () and Stefan Schneck

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: We use a large linked employer-employee data set to analyze the importance of relative wage positions in the context of individual quit decisions as an inverse measure of job satisfaction. Our main findings are: (1) Workers with higher relative wage positions within their firms are on average more likely to quit their jobs than workers with lower relative wage positions; and (2) workers, who experience a loss in their relative wage positions, are also more likely to have a wage cut associated with their job-to-job transition. The overall results therefore suggest that the status effect is dominated by an opposing signal effect.

Keywords: comparison income; mobility; signaling; status; wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 J31 J62 J63 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-438.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Relative Wage Positions and Quit Behavior: New Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-438

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