Managers and wage policies

Abstract

We investigate the effects of individual top managers on wages and wage policies. A large longitudinal administrative dataset from Portugal allows us to match workers,firms and top managers, and follow the movements of the latter across different firms over time. We estimate the role of top manager fixed-effects in determining wages and wage policies, while also accounting for the effect of worker and firm heterogeneity. Our results reveal that top managers have a significant influence on wages, the returns to schooling and tenure, the gender wage gap, and the extent of rent sharing. Further-more, they point to the existence of managerial styles in the setting of wage policies. Finally, we relate worker compensation to observable managerial attributes, and find that returns to schooling tend to be higher in firms led by more educated top executives, while longer-tenured managers appear on average to engage in more rent sharing.Top managers, wage policies, linked worker-firm-manager data.