Desigualdade e empresas

Há anos que escrevo e defendo esta tese "Corporations in the Age of Inequality".

Basta pesquisar o marcador "distribuição de produtividades" e a frase "há maior variabilidade dentro de um mesmo sector de actividade do que entre sectores de actividade"

Na economia do século XX havia basicamente uma estratégia a seguir, a do preço, a do crescimento da quota de mercado, a do aumento da eficiência, a da localização no denominador da equação da produtividade.

Há medida que a economia do século XXI avança, uma economia onde há muito mais estratégias alternativas que não a do preço tout court, e recordo a imagem:

Diferentes abordagens estratégicas geram diferentes distribuições de produtividades e permitem diferentes rentabilidades. Assim, as diferenças entre empresas do mesmo sector começam a aumentar.

"Whereas many economists focus on inequality between individuals, Bloom’s view is filtered through his early work as a consultant at McKinsey, where he became interested in the impact of good management on the economy. “Economists have long dismissed the importance of management practices and were often skeptical of the value of management research,” says Bloom.
...
Bloom was amazed by the variation in management practices he saw among clients — and by how convinced each client was that theirs was the best way.
...
Bloom shares his research on the role firms and management play in the rise of income inequality. He highlights how competitive forces and corporate decision making have contributed to divergent outcomes for individuals and suggests that inequality can’t be fully understood without thinking about companies.
...
Companies can contribute to rising income inequality in two ways. As we’ve just discussed, pay gaps can increase within companies — between how much executives and administrative assistants are paid, for example. But studies now show that gaps between companies are the real drivers of income inequality.
...
We found that the average wages at the firms employing individuals at the top of the income distribution have increased rapidly, while those at the firms employing people in the lower income percentiles have increased far less.
...
In other words, the increasing inequality we’ve seen for individuals is mirrored by increasing inequality between firms. But the wage gap is not increasing as much inside firms, our research shows. This may tend to make inequality less visible, because people do not see it rising in their own workplace."

Acerca da desigualdade

"Para Mateus, a revolução actual é "baseada no conhecimento" e isso "gera remunerações muito diferenciadas" que podem trazer problemas sociais, ao contrário dos salários mais homogéneos que se praticam no tipo de trabalho industrial mais indiferenciado que existe actualmente."

Lentamente mais outra hipótese defendida neste blogue vai emergindo como a explicação mais provável. Na semana passada foi a da China versus euro, agora é sobre a origem do aumento das desigualdades salariais.
.
Recordar:

• Desigualdade e estratégia (Novembro de 2015)
• Desigualdade e produtividade (Novembro de 2014)
• Quem é que gosta de viver numa "Reserva Integral"? (um série com 4 partes em Janeiro de 2012) (interessante como este tema se enquadra com o do proteccionismo)

Trecho inicial retirado de "Augusto Mateus: "Não gosto do 4.0""

Desigualdade e produtividade

Faz todo o sentido:

"This paper links data on establishments and individuals to analyze the role of establishments in the increase in inequality that has become a central topic in economic analysis and policy debate. It decomposes changes in the variance of log earnings among individuals into the part due to changes in earnings among establishments and the part due to changes in earnings within-establishments and finds that much of the 1970s-2010s increase in earnings inequality results from increased dispersion of the earnings among the establishments where individuals work. It also shows that the divergence of establishment earnings occurred within and across industries and was associated with increased variance of revenues per worker. Our results direct attention to the fundamental role of establishment-level pay setting and economic adjustments in earnings inequality."

Trecho retirado de "It’s Where You Work: Increases in Earnings Dispersion across Establishments and Individuals in the U.S."
.
Julgo que já abordei este tema aqui:

"This paper examines earnings inequality along a dimension that previous research has largely ignored: the establishments that employ the worker. Viewing inequality through an establishment lens, we find that most of the increased variance in earnings among individuals is associated with increased variance of average earnings among the establishments where they work. Our findings direct attention to the role of establishment and firm pay setting and labor market adjustments by place of work in the rising tide of inequality."

Cada vez há mais modelos de negócio, cada vez há mais dispersão nas opções estratégicas e produtividade intra-sectorial, daí que umas unidades possam pagar mais aos seus trabalhadores, porque têm margens mais confortáveis e outras não.

"From the productivity side, establishments in markets with inherent heterogeneity in workplace productivity due to differences in the introduction of new technology or other supply shocks or that face differential changes in product demand are likely to see productivity increases spilling over to wages through “rent-sharing” behavior."

"In short, the pattern of change in pay and potentially other economic outcomes in the establishments where people work has been a major factor in the much-heralded increase in inequality"

Desigualdade e ...

No Público de hoje, no artigo "Manuel Pinho volta a faltar ao debate europeu que pediu sobre o preço dos combustíveis", assinado por Isabel Arriaga e Cunha, assinalo e retiro esta pérola:
.
"Ontem, o ministro teve de participar numa "reunião com o presidente de uma multinacional e jantar com ele e com o primeiro-ministro",explicou a sua assessora de imprensa."
.
Ontem terminei a leitura do livro "The Social Atom", um livro muito interessante, um pouco na senda da dinâmica de sistemas. O último capítulo retoma o tema do primeiro, "Pensar em Padrões, Não em Pessoas".
.
O autor refere que nós, humanos, gostamos de praticar a reciprocidade e adoramos castigar os batoteiros (imagens do funcionamento do cérebro ilustram que quando castigamos um batoteiro, são activadas zonas do cérebro que geram prazer e bem-estar). Porquê?
.
Uma explicação plausível é de que estes costumes foram forjados ao longo de uma longa história de competição e conflito entre grupos de caçadores e recolectores em que os mais cooperativos entre si sobreviveram (como referi no outro dia, nos últimos 50000 anos existiram 800 gerações, dessas 800, cerca de 650 viveram em cavernas).
.
Assim a história pode ser vista como "an evolutionary competition between more or less cooperative groups".
.
Depois o autor refere: "It's likely that there aren't any obvious trends or simple cycles in history; nothing that can be wrapped up in a few equations à la Isaac Newton. Bu if there there is some discernible process to history, with its own characteristic rhythms and features, this is how we wil find it - by thinking of patterns, as well as people."
.
Onde é que eu quero chegar com isto e com o ministro Pinho?
.
O autor refere a hipótese veículada nesta tese "The Injustice of Inequality" de Edward Glaeser, Jose Scheinkman, e Andrei Shleifer.
.
"Inequality can encourage institutional subversion in two distinct ways. First, the have-nots can redistribute from the haves through violence, the political process, or other means.
.
Such Robin Hood redistribution jeopardizes property rights, and deters investment by the rich. … Second, the haves can redistribute from the have-nots by subverting legal, political and regulatory institutions to work in their favor. They can do so through political contributions, bribes, or just deployments of legal and political resources to get their way.
.
This King John redistribution renders the property rights of those less well positioned – including small entrepreneurs -- insecure, and holds back their investment. Interestingly, the writers of the Enlightenment, including Smith, were much more concerned with King John redistribution by monopolies and guilds than with Robin Hood redistribution. Here we describe a particular version of King John redistribution similar to the one that concerned Smith .
This focus on institutional subversion by the powerful is related to the literature on lobbying …, and has appeared in a number of recent studies."
.
Na introdução os autores referem:
.
"inequality reduces economic growth, especially in democracies"
.
"In this paper, we propose a new mechanism by which inequality shapes economic and social outcomes: subversion of institutions" e "inequality is detrimental to the security of property rights, and therefore to growth, because it enables the rich to subvert the political, regulatory, and legal institutions of society for their own benefit. If one person is sufficiently richer than another, and courts are corruptible, then the legal system will favor the rich, not the just. Likewise, if political and regulatory institutions can be moved by wealth or influence, they will favor the established, not the efficient. This in turn leads the initially well situated to pursue socially harmful acts, recognizing that the legal, political, and regulatory systems will not hold them accountable."
.
E não há nada mais corrosivo para a cooperação entre os membros de uma sociedade do que esta desigualdade crescente, ainda mais num país com instituições fracas e que não funcionam.
.
Ou seja, estou a ver aqui matéria para imaginar um padrão para o fim dos regimes...
.
ADENDA das 11h41: O comentário de José Silva alertou-para uma reportagem na TVI sobre o aeroporto da Portela, não vi a reportagem, mas pesquisei na net e encontrei: "Aeroporto da Portela tem afinal muitos espaços livres"
.
"in societies with weak institutions, small elite groups do all of the investing, while a much larger group has no possessions and no political power. A strong middle class develops only when institutions protect it from the powerful. The causality between inequality and injustice runs in both directions. Initial inequality leads to subversion of institutions, but weak institutions themselves allow only those able to protect themselves to become rich."
.
Não há acasos...