Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemIndividuals' Wage Changes in Australia 1997-2000.( 2001-05)This paper examines Australian household data from over 4000 individuals to assess how downwardly flexible nominal wages have been during the period 1997 to 2000. The data indicate that there is considerable downward rigidity. Only 7.4 per cent of workers who are still working the same hours in the same job experienced a cut in pay over the previous year. People in low- income households, unskilled and part-time workers and workers reliant upon the Safety Net (i.e. their wages are determined solely by award) are more likely to have received a pay cut than others.
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ItemEnterprise Bargaining and Productivity:Evidence from the Business Longitudinal Survey( 2001-07)The 1990s has seen bargaining, and more specifically, enterprising bargaining supplant arbitration as the dominant industrial relations paradigm. In large part, this change reflects widespread belief that enterprise bargaining would stimulate greater levels of productivity. Evidence in support of this link between enterprise bargaining and productivity, however, is both scant and unconvincing. In this paper the relationship between enterprise bargaining and productivity is revisited using data from the Business Longitudinal Study. This data source is unique in that it provides firm-level data for Australia where the individual firms are tracked over a four-year period. Further, the survey period commenced in 1994-95, which is ideal for studying the impacts of the emerging growth in enterprise agreement coverage. Finally, the BLS data provide an objective measure of value added output. Estimation of a simple production function using a random effects model revealed evidence of a strong contemporaneous relationship between registered enterprise agreements and productivity. Indeed, firms where all employees are on such agreements are estimated to have productivity levels that are 8.8 per cent higher than comparable firms but where no employees are covered by an enterprise agreement and are forced instead to rely on conditions specified in an industry award. However, despite this finding, it still proved impossible to establish a direct causal relationship between the introduction of enterprise agreements and subsequent productivity growth.
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ItemAnalysing Firm-Level Labour Productivity Using Survey Data( 2000-06)This paper investigates the determinants of firm-level labour productivity in the manufacturing sector using GAPS data. These data are from a stratified survey, where the strata are based on industry and firm size. The paper focuses on whether weights should be applied in the regression analysis. Augmented Cobb-Douglas production functions are estimated, where a set of dummies are used as proxies for firm-level knowledge stocks. The regression results show that there are significant differences between the parameters estimated by weighted least squares (WLS) and OLS, particularly for the variables union density and training expenditure. These differences can be caused by parameter heterogeneity (across strata); in theoretical terms this means that applying the same production function across all firms is not appropriate. Given this parameter heterogeneity, both the OLS and WLS methods do not estimate parameters of interest. Instead, there is a requirement to estimate sub-sample regressions. These are presented in the second part of the empirical results.
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ItemThe Determinants of Relative Wage Change in Australia( 2000-12)This paper uses micro data from over 4000 Australian individuals to investigate which factors have had a significant influence on microeconomic wage growth over the past 3 years. The relative importance of four type of factors: outside incomes, demand for labour, workers' relative bargaining strength and category of wage contract are compared. Basic individual demographic characteristics (partial substitute variables for outside incomes), and some indicators of workers' bargaining power provided most of the explanation for wage changes. Proxy variables for labour demand, while significant and correctly signed, were small in magnitude. Information on workplace characteristics and the individual's work history were not available.