The Wage Effects of Fixed-term Contract Employment Revisited: an Investigation Based on Social Security Records

Using data from social security records on Spanish males, we investigate the wage effects of working under a fixed-term contract. In a first step, we provide fixed-effects estimates of the wage effect of working under a fixed-term contract for low-skilled, medium-skilled, and high-skilled men based on administrative data. Next, we include the individual s work history into the wage equation to obtain wage effects conditional on the work history and to study the returns to experience under fixed-term contracts. For this analysis we employ a three-equation random effects model estimated by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. Finally, we use the estimates of this model to simulate the long-term effects of working under a fixed-term contract on future career outcomes.