This paper provides empirical evidence that firms’ internal organization and pay-setting practices shape how minimum wage shocks propagate through the wage distribution. I analyze the effects of a binding minimum wage in a personnel economics model featuring two canonical compensation structures: rigid, job title based pay schedules and flexible, individualized pay. The same policy shock produces distinct spillover patterns depending on the firm’s compensation structure. Firms with rigid hierarchies preserve wage differentials by adjusting pay up the ladder, amplifying spillovers. Flexible systems, in contrast, limit such adjustments. Using linked employer–employee data from Portugal and two minimum wage hikes, I exploit variation in workers’ exposure and firms’ pay-setting practices to estimate spillover effects. These reach up to the median of the wage distribution and are driven primarily by firm responses rather than institutional constraints. Effects are about 30 percent larger in firms with rigid pay structures. The findings identify compensation practices as a key transmission channel through which minimum wage policy, and other shocks to relative pay, reshape the wage distribution.

This paper studies contract splitting - the act of splitting contracts into multiple smaller ones - as a mechanism of manipulation in public procurement. Leveraging the procurement administrative registry in Portugal and exploiting a reform that lowered discretion thresholds, we find that contract splitting is the main mechanism of manipulation. Buyers split to circumvent competitive requirements, more so for goods and services than for less divisible construction works. We discuss the implications of contract splitting for commonly used bunching estimators, documenting the existence of a splitting-induced bias.

This article estimates a discrete-time proportional hazards model to study firm survival in thte Portuguese Tourism sector. While tourism is among the most volatile sectors in times of uncertainty, tourism-associated firms are remarkably resilient.