SI seminar with Ingo Weller
Regulators and legislators suggest that firms’ pay systems should become more transparent to mitigate inequality (e.g., reduce the gender pay gap). Pay transparency is the absence of pay-based information asymmetries, and prior studies have either looked at individual (i.e., psychological) reactions or economy-level outcomes of pay transparency. However, a firm-level perspective is missing. Based on a unique data set collected around the introduction of the German Pay Transparency Act, issued in 2018, we show that firms strategically use and undermine pay transparency regulations. Despite firms avoiding pay transparency, we observe employee level effects. This has important implications for employees and legislators, and inequality as well.
The seminar takes place in Kilen 2.53 and is open to all.