Wage comparisons in and out of the firm. Evidence from a matched employer-employee French database

Olivier Godechot and Claudia Senik ()

No 311, Working Papers from ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality

Abstract: This paper looks at the association between wage satisfaction and different notions of reference wage, based on a matched employer-employee dataset. It shows that workers’ satisfaction depends on other-people’s income in different ways. Relative income concerns are important, but we also find robust evidence of signal effects. For instance, workers are happier the higher the median wage in their firm, holding their own wage constant. This is true of all employees, whatever their relative position in the firm. This signal effect is stronger for young people and for women. These findings are based on objective measures of earnings as well as subjective declarations about wage satisfaction, awareness of other people’s wage and reported income comparisons.

Keywords: Income comparisons; income distribution; job satisfaction; wage satisfaction; signal effect; matched employer-employee survey data. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 I30 J28 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2013-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-hap, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2013-311.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Wage comparisons in and out of the firm. Evidence from a matched employer–employee French database (2015)
Working Paper: Wage Comparisons in and out of the Firm. Evidence from a Matched Employer-Employee French Database (2013)
Working Paper: Wage Comparisons in and out of the Firm. Evidence from a Matched Employer-Employee French Database (2013)
Working Paper: Wage Comparisons in and out of the Firm. Evidence from a Matched Employer-Employee French Database (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2013-311

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