Deferred payments, as implicit contracts, are predicted to bind workers to firms as long as workers believe that firms adhere to these implicit contracts. We employ a unique personnel data set from a Russian manufacturing firm to investigate whether wage arrears, delayed payments of wages,...

Using information from two complementary household survey data sets, we show that the dominant form of labor market adjustment in the Russian transition process has been the delayed receipt of wages. More than half the workforce is experiencing some form of disruption to their pay. Wage arrears...

We examine the implications for estimates of wage relativities and inequality when countries experience wage arrears on a substantial scale, using the Russian labour market as a test case. The increase in wage inequality in Russia during its transition process has far exceeded the increase in...

The increase in wage inequality in Russia during its transition process has far exceeded the increase in wage dispersion observed in other European countries undergoing transition. Russia also has an extremely large incidence of wage arrears. We analyse to what extent wage arrears affect the...