Wage Differentials between Foreign Multinationals and Private Plants and Worker Education in Indonesian Manufacturing

Authors

  • Eric D. Ramstetter Asian Growth Research Institute (AGI), Japan and Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, Thailand
  • Dionisius A. Narjoko Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Indonesia

Keywords:

Multinational enterprises, Southeast Asia, manufacturing, wage determination

Abstract

This paper reexamines wage differentials between medium-large (20 or more workers) foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) and local, private plants in Indonesian manufacturing in 1996 and compares them to 2006. Mean, unconditional differentials were large when all 17 sample industries were combined, declining from 144% to 69% for production workers and from 201% to 84% for non-production workers. Conditional differentials accounting for the tendency of MNEs to hire relatively educated workers, use relatively large amounts of energy and material inputs per worker, and be relatively large, were positive and statistically significant, but smaller, 30% and 3.5%, respectively, for production workers and 40% and 16%, respectively, for non-production workers. Industry-level, conditional differentials were also positive in 10-11 industries in 1996, but most had declined or become insignificant by 2006. The observation of substantial inter-industry heterogeneity indicates that MNE-private differentials were less pervasive than suggested by several previous analyses, which did not allow MNE-private differentials and other slope coefficients in earnings equations to vary among industries. Both aggregate and industry-level differentials tended to be relatively large for high-wage, non-production workers, but the industry-level results were again relatively weak for 2006.

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Published

2019-10-10

How to Cite

Ramstetter, E. D., & Narjoko, D. A. (2019). Wage Differentials between Foreign Multinationals and Private Plants and Worker Education in Indonesian Manufacturing. Thailand and The World Economy, 37(3), 25–44. Retrieved from https://so05.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/TER/article/view/168137