The Institutional Adjustment Margin to Import Competition: Evidence from Italian Minimum Wages

Alessia Matano, Paolo Naticchioni and Francesco Vona

No 12714, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A growing body of research has contributed to understanding the labor market and political effects of globalization. This paper explores an overlooked aspect of trade-induced adjustments in the labor market: the institutional aspect. We take advantage of the two-tier collective bargaining structure of the Italian labor market, whereby the first tier entails setting minimum wages at the contract level. Using an instrumental variable strategy and exploiting variations in contract-level exposure to trade, we find for the 1995-2003 period that, on average, the surge in imports decreased contractual minimum wages by 1.5%. This impact increases in the share of unskilled workers employed in the contract. This negative institutional effect contrasts with a nonsignificant effect of trade on total wages, with the latter becoming positive and large only for highly skilled workers.

Keywords: bargained minimum wages; import competition; labor market institutions; skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 J24 J31 J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-int and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published as 'The institutional wage adjustment to import competition: evidence from the Italian collective bargaining system' in: Oxford Economic Papers , 2023, 75 (3), 631 - 651

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Institutional Adjustment Margin to Import Competition: Evidence from Italian Minimum Wages (2019)
Working Paper: The Institutional Adjustment Margin to Import Competition: Evidence from Italian Minimum Wages (2019)
Working Paper: The Institutional Adjustment Margin to Import Competition: Evidence from Italian Minimum Wages (2019)
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