A Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics in Internal Labor Markets / Robert Gibbons, Michael Waldman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gibbons, Robert.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Waldman, Michael.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6454.

NBER working paper series no. w6454

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wages--Econometric models.

Wages.

Promotions--Econometric models.

Promotions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1998.

Cambridge, MA : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.

Summary:

We attempt to explain employment practices in internal labor markets using models that combine job assignment, on-the-job human-capital acquisition, and learning. We show that a framework that integrates these familiar ideas captures a number of recent empirical findings concerning wage and promotion dynamics in internal labor markets, including the following. First, real wage decreases are a minority of the observations, but are not rare, while demotions are very rare. Second, there is significant serial correlation in wage increases. Third, promotions are associated with particularly large wage increases, but these wage increases are small relative to the difference between average wages across levels of a job ladder. Fourth, on average, workers who receive large wage increases early in their stay at one level of a job ladder are promoted more quickly to the next level. Fifth, individuals promoted from one level of a job ladder to the next come disproportionately, but not exclusively, from the top of the lower job's wage distribution (and arrive disproportionately, but not exclusively, at the bottom of the higher job's wage distribution).

Notes:

Print version record

March 1998.