Firms' margins of adjustment to wage growth: the case of Italian collective bargaining
研究意大利企业面对合同工资增长时的调整行为，发现低效率企业会减少就业和利润，而高效率企业通过替换高薪工人为低薪工人来保持生产率，甚至提高盈利能力。
Abstract This study analyses firms' adjustment behaviour when facing higher labour costs. The empirical research design considers several outcomes, and exploits, as a source of variation in labour costs, discontinuities in the growth of contractual wages set by Italian collective bargaining institutions. The results indicate that adjustment channels are highly heterogeneous across the firms' productivity distribution. Employment, revenue, productivity and the profit margin are negatively related to contractual wage growth among relatively less efficient companies. Instead, most efficient firms do not downsize, they substitute high‐ with low‐wage workers while preserving their productivity, and they may even increase (or at least keep constant) their profitability. We conclude that more efficient companies, which adjust through cost‐saving and labour‐hoarding strategies, may benefit from cleansing effects, as their product market shares increase when costs of more constrained rivals are raised.