The Innovative Behavior of Spanish Enterprises and Its Impact on Salaries

Our aim was to analyze the effects of firms' innovative behavior on their employees' salaries in the Spanish manufacturing industry. We found a premium in the wage paid by innovative firms, regardless of size. However, when taking company size into account, we found that the effect of innovations was greater in small-medium enterprises (SME), contrary to what was expected. The inferences of the models estimated suggest that the higher the market concentration the weaker the appropriability regime, especially for SMEs. However, at the same time, a firm's innovations reduce the impact of market concentration on wages, making innovating firms more autonomous than non-innovating ones. Even more, to be able to innovate, firms have to isolate their employees' salaries from the product market. These results hold regardless of firm's size, but have a greater impact on the small-medium group of firms. Finally, our analysis backs the assumption that salaries in both large and small-medium firms are generated by two distinct economic regimes, supporting the proposition that an SME is not simply a scaled-down large firm.