How Late to Pay? Understanding Wage Arrears in Russia

SITE Working Paper No. 139; W.E. Upjohn Institute Staff Working Paper No. 02-77

60 Pages Posted: 25 Apr 1999

See all articles by John S. Earle

John S. Earle

George Mason University - Schar School of Policy and Government; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Klara Sabirianova Peter

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Date Written: March 2002

Abstract

We organize an empirical analysis of Russian wage arrears around hypotheses concerning factors that create incentives for firms to pay late and for workers to tolerate late payment, both reinforced by a prevalent environment of overdue wages.

Our analysis draws upon nationally representative household panel data matched with employer data to show substantial interfirm variation with the probability of arrears positively related to firm age, size, state ownership, and declining performance.

Estimation of a constrained multinomial logit model also reveals intrafirm variation related to job tenure and small shareholdings in the firm. Workers tend to have higher arrears in rural regions with low hiring rates, concentrated labor markets, and more prevalent arrears in the past.

We argue that wage arrears, unlike wage cuts, have a theoretically ambiguous effect on workers' quit behavior, and we show empirically that the effect varies negatively with the extent of the practice in the local labor market.

Keywords: Russia, pay, arrears, Earle, Zabirianova, Upjohn

JEL Classification: J59, P21

Suggested Citation

Earle, John S. and Sabirianova Peter, Klara, How Late to Pay? Understanding Wage Arrears in Russia (March 2002). SITE Working Paper No. 139; W.E. Upjohn Institute Staff Working Paper No. 02-77, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=162110 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.162110

John S. Earle (Contact Author)

George Mason University - Schar School of Policy and Government ( email )

3351 Fairfax Drive
MS 3B1
Arlington, VA 22201
United States
703-993-8023 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://earle.gmu.edu

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Klara Sabirianova Peter

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill ( email )

Chapel Hill, NC 27599
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.unc.edu/~kpeter

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

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