Wage determinants and economic crisis 2008-2014: evidence from the Czech Republic

Abstract

The economic crisis, which began in 2008, is over. The Czech economy experienced strong GDP growth in 2015 and predictions for further years are also positive. Now, it is the time to assess impacts of the crisis period 2008-2014 on wage determination. Therefore, this paper focuses on a) identification of wage determinants, whose remuneration changed significantly during the examined period, b) assessment of sensitivity of wage returns to GDP development. The analysis was performed on individual data on ca 36% of all employees in the Czech Republic. The results showed significant increase of returns to white-collar occupation and a decrease of returns to education during the years 2008-2014. Also remuneration of many company characteristics was affected significantly. Further analysis revealed that returns to particular wage determinants are only rarely influenced by GDP development.