Format and Rules

The seminar is held on Zoom and lasts 60 minutes including questions. Please use the "raise hand" function if you have any questions and please stay muted until called by the presenter.

Seminars will be recorded and available on this website a few days after. Please note that you may be recorded if you activate your video or speak during the seminar.

Abstract: This paper studies the nature of rent sharing. The historical files of Bureau van Dijk’s Orbis are used to construct a comprehensive panel of manufacturing companies since 2000 for nine European countries. The first set of results provide robust evidence for a positive relationship between firm-level profits and wages, but the relationship is much weaker today than it was before 2008. It is theoretically unclear whether rent sharing reflects the labour market power of employers or employees. The second set of results show that around one third of the level of rent sharing elasticity can be linked with the labour market power of companies (i.e., monopsonistic competition), and two third with the bargaining power of workers. Finally, suggestive evidence shows that cross-country and cross-firm variation in rent sharing, as well as its secular decline, are mostly driven by the differences and changes in the bargaining power of workers.