Documents Berson, Clémence 7 results

"In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the euro area labour market showed remarkable resilience despite weak economic growth and various challenges, including supply chain disruptions, the energy crisis and geopolitical tensions. The relative strength of the labour market compared with economic activity led to a marked decline in measures of labour productivity. Factors such as reduced real wages, increased profit margins, lower average hours worked and strong labour force growth contributed to favourable labour market dynamics, encouraging firms to hire or retain workers. Looking ahead, there are signs of easing in the labour market as some of the factors sustaining employment subside, aligning labour market dynamics more closely with economic activity. Nevertheless, structural issues, such as declining average hours worked and labour force dynamics, may persist."

"We explore the impact of wage adjustment on employment with a focus on the role of downward nominal wage rigidities. We use a harmonised survey dataset, which covers 25 European countries in the period 2010-2013. The main advantages of the data are firm-level information on the change in economic conditions and collective pay agreements. Our findings confirm the presence of wage rigidities in Europe: first, collective pay agreements reduce the probability of downward wage adjustment; second, the rise in the probability of downward base wage responses to a decrease in demand is significantly smaller than the rise in the probability of an upward wage response to an increase in demand. Estimation results point to a negative effect of downward wage rigidities on employment at the firm level."

"In coordination with the ECB and 24 other national central banks of the European Union, the Banque de France interrogated 1150 French firms to understand how the crisis affected their economic environment and their human resources practices during the 2010-2013 period. A majority of workers were employed by firms which indicate that their activity was mostly affected by a decrease in demand considered as long-lasting by more than 40% of them, especially in the construction sector and among small firms. In contrast, less than 20% of firms (weighted by their employment) report that the unavailability of credit had an effect on their activity. Over the period, despite the economic downturn, the amount of total costs increased for 70% of firms (weighted by their employment) mainly through an increase in labour costs and secondly in the cost of supplies. In particular, base wages continued to increase for a large share of firms, suggesting strong downward wage rigidities. Many firms indicate substantial difficulties in adjusting the labour force: throughout the crisis it became more difficult to hire qualified employees, to adjust working hours or to move workers to different job positions. The joint presence of difficulties in finding employees and unemployment growth suggest that structural unemployment increased in France in recent years. Other factors considered as significantly constraining for employment growth by a large majority of firms are uncertainty about economic conditions, risks that labour laws are changed, high payroll taxes and firing costs."

"À partir d'une expérimentation de testing réalisée sur le métier d'hôte de caisse dans le secteur de la grande distribution, une discrimination est établie à l'encontre des hommes et plus fortement encore, à l'encontre des Français d'origine marocaine. Une étude économétrique prenant en compte l'environnement économique et social des magasins testés montre qu'il est possible d'identifier et d'interpréter une discrimination par goût à la Becker lorsque le protocole expérimental a été réalisé dans ce but. Les résultats tendent à attester d'une discrimination statistique envers les hommes car les femmes leur sont préférées en raison de la faible élasticité de leur offre de travail aux conditions de travail. La discrimination à l'encontre des candidats d'origine marocaine semble au contraire être due aux « goûts » du client ou de l'employeur."

"We explore the impact of wage adjustment on employment with a focus on the role of downward nominal wage rigidities. We use a harmonised survey dataset, which covers 25 European countries in the period 2010-2013. These data are particularly useful for this paper given the firm-level information on the change in economic conditions and collective pay agreements. Our findings confirm the presence of wage rigidities in Europe: first, collective pay agreements reduce the probability of downward wage adjustment; second, the rise in the probability of downward base wage responses following a decrease in demand is significantly smaller than the rise in the probability of an upward wage response associated with an increase in demand. Estimation results point to a negative effect of downward wage rigidities on employment at the firm level."

"This paper provides evidence on the role of non-base wage components as a channel for firms to adjust labour costs in the event of adverse shocks. It uses data from a firm-level survey for 25 European countries that covers the period 2010–2013. We find that firms subject to nominal wage rigidities, which prevent them from adjusting base wages, are more likely to cut non-base wage components in order to adjust labour costs when needed. Firms thus use non-base wage components as a buffer to overcome base wage rigidity. We further show that while nonbase wage components exhibit some degree of downward rigidity, they do so to a lesser extent than base wages."