Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/93080 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
ZEW Discussion Papers No. 14-016
Publisher: 
Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW), Mannheim
Abstract: 
Firms' labor demand responses to wage changes are of key interest in empirical research and policy analysis. However, despite extensive research, estimates of labor demand elasticities remain subject to considerable heterogeneity. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive meta-regression analysis to re-assess the empirical literature on labor demand elasticities. Building on 942 elasticity estimates from 105 different studies, we identify sources of variation in the absolute value of this elasticity. Heterogeneity due to the theoretical and empirical speci cation of the labor demand model, di fferent datasets used or sectors and countries considered explains more than 80% of the variation in the estimates. We further find substantial evidence for the presence of publication selection bias, as estimates of the own-wage elasticity of labor demand are upwardly inflated.
Subjects: 
labor demand
wage elasticity
meta-analysis
JEL: 
J23
C10
C83
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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