TY - JOUR

T1 - Reference wages and turnover intentions

T2 - evidence from linked employer-employee data

AU - Mohrenweiser, Jens

AU - Pfeifer, Christian

N1 - Funding Information: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. We thank participants of the 2020 Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego, the Workshop in “Assessing the Impact of Human Resource Management Practices” 2017 in Nurnberg, the Workshop in Management Research 2017 in Wuppertal, department seminar at LUISS university Rome, as well as Andrew Clark, Stefan Schneck, Susanne Steffes, Gesine Stephan, and Knut Gerlach for their comments. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - This research note analyzes the nexus between workers’ turnover intentions and workers’ own wages, internal and external reference wages. Worker and establishment surveys are linked with administrative social security data for all workers in surveyed establishments. Approximately half a million worker-year observations are used to predict conditional internal and external reference wages. Results show that higher external and internal reference wages are correlated with higher turnover intentions. Thus, external reference wages seem to serve as outside options and higher reference wages of co-workers seem rather to reduce own social status than to signal better future prospects at the current employer.

AB - This research note analyzes the nexus between workers’ turnover intentions and workers’ own wages, internal and external reference wages. Worker and establishment surveys are linked with administrative social security data for all workers in surveyed establishments. Approximately half a million worker-year observations are used to predict conditional internal and external reference wages. Results show that higher external and internal reference wages are correlated with higher turnover intentions. Thus, external reference wages seem to serve as outside options and higher reference wages of co-workers seem rather to reduce own social status than to signal better future prospects at the current employer.

KW - Income comparison

KW - linked employer-employee data

KW - signal

KW - status

KW - turnover

KW - Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131693965&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/256435a0-f7e9-3040-b07c-0a3dd0b67adf/

U2 - 10.1080/13504851.2022.2086680

DO - 10.1080/13504851.2022.2086680

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85131693965

VL - 30

SP - 1955

EP - 1959

JO - Applied Economics Letters

JF - Applied Economics Letters

SN - 1350-4851

IS - 14

ER -