Wage Structure and Labor Mobility in Norway, 1980–97

Abstract

To what extent do different firms follow different wage policies? How do such policies affect worker mobility between firms, and what are the effects of different wage bargaining regimes? The empirical branch of personnel economics has long been hampered by a lack of representative data sets. Norway is one of a handful of countries that has produced rich linked employer-employee data suitable for such analysis. This paper has three parts. First, we describe the wage setting and employment protection institutions in Norway. Next, we describe the Norwegian data sets. Finally, we document a large number of stylized facts regarding wage structure and labor mobility within and between Norwegian firms. Our main data set covers white-collar workers in the manufacturing and private sectors for the period 1980-1997. We also have blue-collar data for the 1986-1997 period covering the core of the manufacturing sector. Information about occupations, monthly wages, hours worked and bonuses is available, as well as various worker and firm characteristics. * This is a country study for Norway prepared for an international book project within the NBER personnel economics group headed by Edward Lazear and Kathryn Shaw. Cf.

Testing the Role of Comparative Advantage and Learning in Wage and Promotion Dynamics

“…for merging the NHO data set with the administrative register, besides obtaining more information, is that it is unclear whether the information reported in the NHO statistics pertains to plants, firms or a combination of the two. For more detailed information about the NHO data and the merging process, see Hunnes, Møen, and Salvanes (2007). Because of the merging with the administrative data set, I restrict the years used in this paper to 1987-1997.…”

Wage Cyclicality and Composition Bias in the Norwegian Economy*

“…The coverage rate of collective bargaining is determined at firm level in the sense that if the firm is covered, then all employees are covered, irrespective of whether they are individual union members or not. This explains why the collective agreement coverage in the private sector is approximately 50 percent whereas the unionization rate is lower, approximately 43 percent (Hunnes et al ., 2009).…”

“…According to Hunnes et al . (2009, p. 324), writing about the years 1980–1997, “the overall impression is that legislation, contracts, and common practice impose important additional costs in Norway when adjusting the labor force down, and possibly upward as well”. This characterization of employment protection in the Norwegian economy also applies to later years.…”

Testing the role of comparative advantage and learning in wage and promotion dynamics

“…For more on this, see Hunnes, Møen, and Salvanes (2007) using the data where a single hierarchy within the firm is created.…”