Horizontal Collusion and Parallel Wage-Setting in Labor Markets

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan S. Masur ◽  
Eric A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Wage Setting

Employers and the Persistence of Centralized Wage Setting

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 995-1026 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Political Leverage

Recent research indicates that centralized collective bargaining institutions are more resilient than predicted by the conventional wisdom, which viewed them as incompatible with new competitive conditions and newproduction strategies. Drawing on a case study of Norway, the author argues that one reason for this resilience is that centralized wage setting may be actively supported by employers because it serves important employer interests. It has helped moderate wage growth, reduced transaction costs, contributed to stable industrial relations, and provided political leverage for employer organizations. The author also argues that institutional change must be viewed in terms of its economic and institutional context. There has been some formal devolution of bargaining capacity to the level of the individual firm in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. However, these changes have been accompanied by institutional changes, instigated by employers, that have increased the coordinating capacity of labor market actors. Labor markets in all three countries remain highly institutionalized.

Do Employers Have More Monopsony Power in Slack Labor Markets?

ILR Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Hirsch ◽  
Elke J. Jahn ◽  
Claus Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
The Other ◽  
Duration Models ◽  
Similar Magnitude ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Labor Supply Elasticity ◽  
Economic Downturns ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
Monopsony Power ◽  
Time Invariant

This article confronts monopsony theory’s predictions regarding workers’ wages with observed wage patterns over the business cycle. Using German administrative data for the years 1985 to 2010 and an estimation framework based on duration models, the authors construct a time series of the labor supply elasticity to the firm and estimate its relationship to the unemployment rate. They find that firms possess more monopsony power during economic downturns. Half of this cyclicality stems from workers’ job separations being less wage driven when unemployment rises, and the other half mirrors that firms find it relatively easier to poach workers. Results show that the cyclicality is more pronounced in tight labor markets with low unemployment, and that the findings are robust to controlling for time-invariant unobserved worker or plant heterogeneity. The authors further document that cyclical changes in workers’ entry wages are of similar magnitude as those predicted under pure monopsonistic wage setting.

A MODEL OF WAGE SETTING and WAGE DIVERSITY IN LOCAL LABOR MARKETS

1973 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-110
Author(s):  
ROBERT S. GOLDFARB
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Local Labor Markets ◽  
Wage Setting

scholarly journals The Wage Setting Process

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-84
Author(s):  
Thomas Christiano
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets ◽  
Competitive Markets ◽  
Price Fairness ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Fair Process ◽  
Procedural Approach ◽  
Setting Process ◽  
Imperfectly Competitive ◽  
Just Price ◽  
Equal Power

The Wage Setting Process     In this paper I will defend a conception of fairness in labor markets.  I will argue that we should take a procedural approach to the evaluation of fairness in markets.  The procedural approach defended here goes beyond the traditional procedural view that requires only the absence of force and fraud.  But it avoids the pitfalls of the other classical conception of fairness in the market: the idea of a just wage or just price.  Fairness in markets is analogous to fairness in the democratic process.              I will start with a discussion and critique of Joseph Heath’s stimulating discussion of fairness in labor markets.  Though I agree in part with his assessment of the just wage tradition, I will argue that there is room for thinking about fairness in markets.  I will then lay out a conception of fairness that is based on the analogy with democracy.  The procedural idea of equal power can be given an interpretation both in perfectly competitive markets and in imperfectly competitive markets.  I will show how this approach has implications for conceiving of how firms ought to be organized and for defining a fair process of wage setting in the essentially highly imperfect conditions of the labor market.  

Wage-setting Mechanisms in the Russian Industry

2004 ◽  
pp. 66-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kapelyushnikov
Keyword(s):  
Special Section ◽  
Close Correlation ◽  
Specific Model ◽  
Wage Determination ◽  
Collective Agreement ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Subsistence Minimum ◽  
Competitive Model ◽  
Very High

The paper examines a specific model of wage-setting evolved in Russia under transition. Using new survey data author reveals paradoxical characteristics of wage-setting mechanisms at Russian industrial enterprises: very high union and collective agreement coverage; nearly unilateral control of managers over wage determination; close correlation between earnings and enterprises' performance; voluntary utilization of wage standards established by the state. The special section explores effects of fulfilling a new provision stipulated for by the recently adopted Labor Code to raise minimum wage to the subsistence minimum level. The author concludes that wage-setting in the Russian labor market is at odds with a textbook competitive model and poorly fits into many other sophisticated theoretical schemes (such as labor-managed firms, bargaining models etc.).

Paradoxes of reservation wage setting in the Russian labor market. Part I

2016 ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
R. Kapeliushnikov ◽  
A. Lukyanova
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Reservation Wage ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Reservation Wages ◽  
Monitoring Survey ◽  
Main Determinants ◽  
Subjective Estimates ◽  
Objective Indicators

Using panel data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey for 2006-2014, the paper investigates reservation wages setting in the Russian labor market. The sample includes non-employed individuals wishing to get a job (both searchers and non-searchers). The first part of the paper provides a survey of previous empirical studies, describes data and analyzes subjective estimates of reservation wages in comparison with various objective indicators of actual wages. The analysis shows that wage aspirations of the majority of Russian non-employed individuals are overstated. However their wage expectations are rather flexible and decrease rapidly as the search continues that prevents high long-term unemployment. The second part of the paper provides an econometric analysis of main determinants of reservation wage and its impact on probability of re-employment and wages on searchers’ new jobs.

How Important Are Labor Markets to the Welfare of Indonesia's Poor?

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D. Mason ◽  
Jacqueline Baptist
Keyword(s):  
Labor Markets
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