Real wage cyclicality of job stayers, within-company job movers, and between-company job movers

Citation

Devereux PJ & Hart RA (2006) Real wage cyclicality of job stayers, within-company job movers, and between-company job movers. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60 (1), pp. 105-119. http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?partnerID=yv4JPVwI&eid=2-s2.0-35748977816&md5=11194ba077e3a2f337c19abe32ef2d36

Abstract
Using the British New Earnings Survey Panel Data for 1975-2001, the authors estimate the wage cyclicality (the degree to which wage levels rise and fall with economic upturns and downturns) of three groups: job stayers, within-company job movers, and between-company job movers. Wages of internal movers, they find, were slightly more procyclical, and wages of external movers considerably more procyclical, than those of stayers. The greater cyclicality of movers' wages is particularly apparent for private sector workers and persons not covered by collective agreements. Nevertheless, because job stayers comprised about 90% of all observations in this large sample of British workers, the procyclicality of their wages was the predominant determinant of the overall procyclical pattern found across all groups. Thus, the analysis does not support the implication of some rigid wage models that employers use job title changes to adjust wages to the business cycle.

Keywords
Cyclical Processes; Great Britain; Job Change; Private Sector; Wages; Work Organization

Journal
Industrial and Labor Relations Review: Volume 60, Issue 1

• hart_2006_Real_wage.pdf