Alternate Author Name(s)

Thomas C. Cowing

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

1974

Keywords

Manufactures, Greece, 20th century, Economic conditions, 1918-1974

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

John E. La Tourette

Second Advisor

Stanely H. Cohn

Abstract

...It is the purpose of this thesis to proffer two alternative hypotheses about the behavior of the ratio of salaried employees to wage—earners and to use these to explain the changing relationships of salaried to non-salaried workers in Greek manufacturing.

The first proposition states that changes in the ratio are due to changes in relative factor prices. More precisely, if the wage rate rises faster than the salary rate, substitution of salaried labor for non-salaried will lead to differential shifts in labor demands, and, therefore, the ratio will rise.

The second hypothesis states that, because of capital influx to Greece and emigration in the 1960's, it was easier to expand output by hiring more capital services than by hiring more labor services; hence, substitution of capital for labor took place. However, it is probable that "skilled" labor (salaried or non-manual labor as well as skilled manual labor) and capital are highly correlated and, therefore, are complementary. This suggests that capital requires more of both salaried and skilled manual labor and less of unskilled manual labor. Thus, if the growth of the employment of salaried personnel exceeds that of wage earners, the ratio of salaried staff to non-salaried workers will rise. This means that the observed difference between the growth rate of employment of wage earners and that of salaried workers may be explained by the substitution of capital and the associated increase in the demand for salaried labor.

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