OECD Economics Department Working Papers
The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.
- Forthcoming titles
- ISSN: 18151973 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/18151973
Product Market Regulation and Wage Premia in Europe and North America
An Empirical Investigation
Using new cross-country data on industry-specific product market regulations, this paper investigates the relationship between wage premia and some of the policy determinants of product market rents. Hourly wage premia in 2-digit manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries are estimated from detailed data on wage earnings in (or around) 1996 by category of worker (age, sex, education and type of contract) in 12 European and North-American countries. The effects of regulation on these wage premia are estimated by panel data regression techniques. We find that product market regulation restricting competition has a significant positive impact on wage premia in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. However, in the latter industries, this effect is offset by a negative effect of legal public monopolies on wage premia. Since public ownership per se shows no relation to premia, we interpret this result as evidence of either a low-productivity trap due to x-inefficiency ...
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