Changes in the Austrian Structure of Wages, 1996-2002: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

37 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2010

See all articles by Wolfgang Pointner

Wolfgang Pointner

Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB)

Alfred Stiglbauer

Austrian National Bank

Date Written: November 12, 2010

Abstract

Analyzing data from the Structure of Earnings Surveys we find that wage dispersion in Austria increased marginally between 1996 and 2002. There was an increase in the returns to education which accrued only to male workers. The positive effects of tenure and especially of experience on wages decreased over time. We adopt the Machado-Mata (2005) counterfactual decomposition technique which allows to attribute changes in each wage decile to changes in worker and workplace characteristics and into changes in returns to these characteristics. Behind the small net increase in inequality we document a number of interesting gross effects that influence the wage distribution. We find that both composition effects due to gender, education and age and market-driven effects such as changes in returns and changing workplace characteristics contributed to a higher dispersion of wages.

Keywords: Wage Structure, Quantile Regression, Machado-Mata Decomposition

JEL Classification: J22, J31

Suggested Citation

Pointner, Wolfgang and Stiglbauer, Alfred, Changes in the Austrian Structure of Wages, 1996-2002: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data (November 12, 2010). ECB Working Paper No. 1268, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1708129 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1708129

Wolfgang Pointner

Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) ( email )

Otto-Wagner-Platz 3, PO Box 61
Vienna,
1010 Vienna, A-1011
Austria

Alfred Stiglbauer (Contact Author)

Austrian National Bank ( email )

Otto-Wagner Platz 1
A-1011 Vienna
Austria

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