This paper describes and evaluates the analytical model of the labor market developed by prominent labor economists of the 1940s and 1950s. The author argues that the post-institutionalist model made significant and lasting contributions to the analysis of labor mobility and the process of job search; to the formulation of models of union policies and the evaluation of the impact of collective bargaining; to the analysis of the factors that shape internal wage structure and contribute to the rise of internal labor markets; and, by its emphasis on the critical role played by the forces of demand, to the analysis of the wage determination process.