O salário da indústria tradicional brasileira: impacto do salário mínimo

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to analyze the determination of the salaries of the traditional Brazilian industry from 1996 to 2015. The traditional Brazilian industry is characterized by low technological intensity and high capacity to absorb low-skilled labor. Thus, labor costs have a great impact on this sector. According to the Human Capital Theory, the worker's productivity is determined by his skills or individual attributes. Therefore, more productive workers should receive higher pay than less productive workers. Consequently, workers with the same attributes, skills or productivity should receive the same remuneration. However, this theoretical finding does not occur in the labor market, by non-observable characteristics of individuals, due to discrimination or segmentation of the labor market. The adopted methodology refers to Panel Data. Hypotheses tests were applied that assisted in choosing the most appropriate model. The main results indicated that the logarithm variables of the real average wage (lagged dependent variable), the logarithm variables of real net revenue and the logarithm variables of the actual minimum salary were the main responsible for the changes in the average wage of the traditional Brazilian industry.