Title: Labour Productivity and Wages in the Romanian Manufacturing Sector
Abstract: This study aims to empirically investigate the labour productivity-wages nexus in the Romanian manufacturing industry, in the 2008-2016 period, and it is motivated by the need to improve labour productivity and its relationship with wages so as to ensure an increase in the living standards of workers. Our results highlight that the manufacturing sector in Romania has an important contribution to the value added and employment of the non-financial business economy. The results of the correlation and regression analysis show that the level of labour productivity positively influenced wages in Romanian manufacturing sector, in the 2008-2016 period. Also, our findings suggest that the high level of wages in some manufacturing subsectors can be mainly explained by a high level of labour productivity. Moreover, results emphasize, on the one hand, persistent and increasing gaps between labour productivity and wages in the 2008-2016 period, in the whole manufacturing sector, and, on the other hand, high gaps between labour productivity and wages among some manufacturing subsectors, fact which can produce the declining labour shares and consequently can increase social inequality.