Ownership and pay in Britain

Pendleton, A.; Bryson, A.; Gospel, H.

doi:10.1111/bjir.12241

Ownership and pay in Britain

Pendleton, A.; Bryson, A.; Gospel, H.

Authors

A. Pendleton

A. Bryson

H. Gospel

Abstract

Drawing on principal–agent perspectives on corporate governance, the article examines whether employees’ hourly pay is related to ownership dispersion. Using linked employee-workplace data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011, and using a variety of techniques including interval regression and propensity score matching, average hourly pay is found to be higher in dispersed ownership workplaces. The premium is broadly constant across most of the wage distribution, but falls at the 95th percentile to become statistically non-significant. This contrasts with earlier papers which indicate that higher level employees are the primary beneficiaries of higher pay from dispersed ownership. The dispersed ownership pay premium is not readily explained by efficiency wage perspectives but is consistent with a managerial desire for a ‘quiet life’.

Citation

Pendleton, A., Bryson, A., & Gospel, H. (2017). Ownership and pay in Britain. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 55(4), 688-715. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12241

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 11, 2017
Online Publication Date	May 12, 2017
Publication Date	May 12, 2017
Deposit Date	Mar 27, 2017
Publicly Available Date	May 12, 2019
Journal	British Journal of Industrial Relations
Print ISSN	0007-1080
Electronic ISSN	1467-8543
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	55
Issue	4
Pages	688-715
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12241
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1390056

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Pendleton, A., Bryson, A. & Gospel, H. (2017). Ownership and pay in Britain. British Journal of Industrial Relations 55(4): 688-715, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12241. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.