How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths
How Substitutable Are Workers? Evidence from Worker Deaths
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工人的可替代性如何？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Simon Jäger
中科院分区：
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作者：
Simon Jäger
企业内部工人之间的可替代性，以及在职工人和外部工人之间的可替代性，对于理解内部劳动力市场的运作和工人流动的后果至关重要。为了评估工人的可替代性，我估计如何外生工人退出影响企业的在职工人和新员工的需求。使用匹配的雇主-雇员数据的基础上宇宙的德国社会保障记录，我分析了34,000意外工人死亡的影响，并表明，这些工人的退出平均提高剩余工人的工资和保留概率为一段时间的几年。这些发现很难与无摩擦的劳动力市场和在职工人与外部工人之间的完全可替代性相协调。平均效应掩盖了实质性的异质性：与死者相同职业的同事看到了积极的工资效应;当高技能工人或经理去世时，其他职业的同事反而会经历工资下降。因此，同一职业的同事似乎是替代品，而高技能工人和管理人员似乎是其他职业同事的补充。最后，当死者职业的外部劳动力市场很薄时，在职者的工资对工人死亡的反应更大，外部招聘的反应更小。结果表明，薄弱的外部市场的技能导致较高的企业专用性的人力资本和较低的替代性在职者。
The substitutability between workers within a firm, and between incumbent workers and outsiders, matters for understanding the operation of internal labor markets and the consequences of worker turnover. To assess the substitutability of workers, I estimate how exogenous worker exits affect a firm’s demand for incumbent workers and new hires. Using matched employer-employee data based on the universe of German social security records, I analyze the effects of 34,000 unexpected worker deaths and show that these worker exits on average raise the remaining workers’ wages and retention probabilities for a period of several years. These findings are difficult to reconcile with frictionless labor markets and perfect substitutability between incumbent workers and outsiders. The average effect masks substantial heterogeneity: Coworkers in the same occupation as the deceased see positive wage effects; coworkers in other occupations instead experience wage decreases when a high-skilled worker or manager dies. Thus, coworkers in the same occupation appear to be substitutes, while high-skilled workers and managers appear to be complements to coworkers in other occupations. Finally, when the external labor market in the deceased’s occupation is thin, incumbents’ wages respond more and external hiring responds less to a worker death. The results suggest that thin external markets for skills lead to higher firm-specificity of human capital and lower replaceability of incumbents.