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Abstract：
This paper analyzes the impact of automatic wage indexation on employment. To boost competitiveness and increase employment, Belgium suspended its automatic wage indexation system in 2015. This resulted in a 2% fall in real wages for all workers. In the absence of a suitable control group, we use machine learning for the counterfactual analysis. We artificially construct the control group for a difference-in-difference analysis based on the pre-treatment evolution of treated firms. We find a positive impact on employment of 1.2%, which corresponds to a labor demand elasticity of - 0.6. This effect is more pronounced for manufacturing firms, where the elasticity reaches - 1. These results show that a suspension of the automatic wage indexation mechanism can be effective in preserving employment.
摘要：
本文分析了工资自动指数化对就业的影响。为了提高竞争力，增加就业，比利时于2015年暂停了自动工资指数化系统。这导致所有工人的实际工资下降了2%。在没有合适的对照组的情况下，我们使用机器学习进行反事实分析。我们根据被治疗公司的治疗前演变，人为地构建了对照组，以进行差异分析。我们发现对就业的积极影响为1.2%，对应的劳动力需求弹性为-0.6。这种影响对制造企业来说更为明显，其中弹性达到-1。这些结果表明，自动工资指数化机制的暂停可以有效地维护就业。
