6533b850fe1ef96bd12a82df

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Work Incentive and Productivity in Spain

subject

description

Work incentives are closely related to production performance. This paper presents evidence that the value added of a firm increases when relative labor costs rise, or the level of unemployment increases. Both circumstances imply evidence in favor of the efficiency wage model. This theory is consistent with the views of many managers and personal administrators, who tend to ascribe primary importance to wage setting as an incentive to increase effort. We use a micro panel data set of Spanish manufacturing firms, during the period 2004–2009, to simultaneously estimate a stochastic frontier of a firm’s value added and the inefficiency determinants. The data source is published in the Spanish Industrial Survey on Business Strategies (Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales, ESEE), collected by the Fundacion SEPI.