Fathi Fakhfakh

Who Benefits from Training and R&D, the Firm or the Workers?

The present paper offers a novel study of the effects of intangible assets on wages and productivity. Training, R&D and physical capital are all taken into account, and their joint effects are examined. We use panels of firms in order to control for unobserved fixed effects and the potential endogeneity of training and R&D, using data for France and Sweden. The estimation of productivity and wage equations allows us to show how the benefits of investment in physical capital, training and R&D are shared between the firm and the workers. We found that firms indeed obtain the largest part of the returns to their investments, but their share is relatively lower for intangible assets (R&D and training) than for physical capital.

Firms' human capital, R&D and performance: a study on French and Swedish firms

Abstract This paper studies the effects of human and technological capital on productivity in a sample of large French and Swedish firms. While the role of technological capital as measured by R&D has been intensively investigated, almost no work has been done on the role of human capital as measured by firm-sponsored training and even less its interaction with technological capital. The level of intangible capital may also have a lasting effect on productivity growth, as emphasised by some endogenous growth models in a macroeconomic setting. The study uses data from two panels of large French and Swedish firms for the same period (1987–1993). It constructs measures of a firms human capital stock, based on their past and present training expenditures. The results confirm that firm-sponsored training and R&D are significant inputs in the two countries, although to a different extent, and have high returns. However, except for managers and engineers in France, we do not find evidence of positive interactions between these two types of capital. Finally, growth effects at the firm level do not appear.

Absenteeism and Employee Sharing: An Empirical Analysis Based on French Panel Data, 1981–1991

The authors investigate the effects on absenteeism of two types of employee sharing plans—profit-sharing and employee share ownership—in 127 French firms over the years 1981–91. Both types of plan were associated with statistically significant reductions in absenteeism. Most effective was the presence of a share ownership plan by itself (not in combination with profit-sharing), which was associated with a reduction in employee absence of approximately 14%. The presence of both plans together reduced absence by about 11%, and the presence of only a profit-sharing plan reduced absence by about 7%. Among firms in which both types of plan were present, a given sharing plan reduced absence more effectively when it was introduced second than when it was introduced first; in fact, where employee share ownership already existed, the introduction of profit-sharing actually increased absence slightly.

The Effects of Profit-sharing Schemes on Enterprise Performance in France

France has one of the most extensive sets of legislative provisions in favour of profit-sharing and one-third of all non-government employees are covered by at least one subsidised scheme. Subsidised, regulated schemes include statutory profit-sharing (participation), which is compulsory in all firms with 50 employees or more, and voluntary profit-sharing (interessement). This paper assesses the effects of voluntary profit-sharing on total factor productivity in small and large firms and the importance of the technological context in which the schemes are implemented. A production function is estimated on a representative, five year unbalanced panel of around 5000 French firms a year in industry and services, controlling for market power, skills and pay levels. Voluntary profit-sharing is found to significantly increase total factor productivity and to affect the shape of the technology. The effect of the voluntary scheme is greater in firms also required to have a statutory scheme. In these larger firms,...

Dynamic Monopsony: Evidence from a French Establishment Panel

This paper uses a panel of about 6000 French establishments to test some implications of the modern theory of dynamic monopsony or upward sloping labour supply curves for average firm wages. Panel estimates provide strong evidence of a much larger long run employer size - wage effect (ESWE) than found previously, while controlling for worker quality and compensating differentials with lagged wages, and for profitability (rent sharing). Employment expansion also has a positive effect on wages, providing further evidence for upward sloping labour supply (as distinct from the effect of shocks in a perfectly competitive labour market).

Workplace Change and Productivity: Does Employee Voice Make a Difference?

This book examines the ways in which collective bargaining addresses a variety of workplace concerns in the context of today’s global economy. Globalization can contribute to growth and development, but as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, it also puts employment, earnings and labour standards at risk. This book examines the role that collective bargaining plays in ensuring that workers are able to obtain a fair share of the benefits arising from participation in the global economy and in providing a measure of security against the risk to employment and wages. It focuses on a commonly neglected side of the story and demonstrates the positive contribution that collective bargaining can make to both economic and social goals. The various contributions examine how this fundamental principle and right at work is realized in different countries and how its practice can be reinforced across borders. They highlight the numerous resulting challenges and the critically important role that governments play in rebalancing bargaining power in a global economy. The chapters are written in an accessible style and deal with practical subjects, including employment security, workplace change and productivity, and working time.

Exploring the private pension gender gap and occupation in later working life

This article investigates the gender gap in private pension (PP) membership and wealth across different occupations among a cohort of employees using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Using a Heckman selection model to correct for selection bias the results show that gender has a stronger effect than occupation on PP membership and that it is female employees’ lower rate of PP membership that has the greatest impact on their ability to accumulate PP wealth, rather than their ability to save once a member. The size of the gender gap in PP wealth is also conditioned by occupation. Analysis of the interaction of these two variables provides new insights into the heterogeneity of women’s private pension experience and the emergence of a ‘privileged pole’ among professional women.