Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals
77 Pages Posted: 25 Mar 2020
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Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals
Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals
Date Written: March 2020
Abstract
Many employers link wages at the firm's establishments outside of the home region to the level at headquarters. Multinationals that anchor-to-the-headquarters also transmit wage changes arising from shocks to minimum wages and exchange rates in the home country/state, to their foreign establishments. Such multinationals fire more low-skill workers and hire fewer new workers abroad after a permanent (minimum wage-induced) foreign establishment wage increase originating in shocks to headquarter wages, but not after a temporary (exchange rate-induced) one. We show this using data on 1,060 multinationals' establishments across the world and in employee-level data on the same employers' establishments in Brazil
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