IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v19y2012i6p923-930.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wage bargaining, productivity growth and long-run industry structure

Author

Listed:
  • Bester, Helmut
  • Milliou, Chrysovalantou
  • Petrakis, Emmanuel

Abstract

This paper studies the innovation dynamics of an oligopolistic industry. The firms compete not only in the output market but also by engaging in productivity enhancing innovations to reduce labor costs. Rent sharing may generate productivity dependent wage differentials. Productivity growth creates intertemporal spillover effects, which affect the incentives for innovation at subsequent dates. Over time the industry equilibrium approaches a steady state. The paper characterizes the evolution of the industry's innovation behavior and its market structure on the adjustment path.

Suggested Citation

  • Bester, Helmut & Milliou, Chrysovalantou & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2012. "Wage bargaining, productivity growth and long-run industry structure," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 923-930.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:6:p:923-930
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2012.09.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537112001054
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2012.09.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Malerba, Franco, 2007. "Innovation and the dynamics and evolution of industries: Progress and challenges," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 675-699, August.
    2. Bester, Helmut & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2003. "Wages and productivity growth in a competitive industry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 52-69, March.
    3. Ulph, A. M. & Ulph, D. T., 1994. "Labour markets and innovation: Ex-post bargaining," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 195-210, January.
    4. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    5. Acs, Zoltan J. & Audretsch, David B., 1987. "Innovation in large and small firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 109-112.
    6. Jian Tong, 2009. "Explaining The Shakeout Process: A 'Successive Submarkets' Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 950-975, April.
    7. Bester, Helmut & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2004. "Wages and productivity growth in a dynamic monopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 83-100, January.
    8. Robert J. Gordon, 2000. "Interpreting the "One Big Wave" in U.S. Long-Term Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 7752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Jovanovic, Boyan & MacDonald, Glenn M, 1994. "The Life Cycle of a Competitive Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 322-347, April.
    10. Steven Klepper & Kenneth L. Simons, 2000. "The Making of an Oligopoly: Firm Survival and Technological Change in the Evolution of the U.S. Tire Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 728-760, August.
    11. Richard Ericson & Ariel Pakes, 1995. "Markov-Perfect Industry Dynamics: A Framework for Empirical Work," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82.
    12. Mark Doms & Timothy Dunne & Kenneth R. Troske, 1997. "Workers, Wages, and Technology," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 253-290.
    13. Steven Klepper & Elizabeth Graddy, 1990. "The Evolution of New Industries and the Determinants of Market Structure," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 27-44, Spring.
    14. Hellwig, Martin & Irmen, Andreas, 2001. "Endogenous Technical Change in a Competitive Economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 1-39, November.
    15. Pakes, Ariel & Ericson, Richard, 1998. "Empirical Implications of Alternative Models of Firm Dynamics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 1-45, March.
    16. Baldwin, Carliss Y, 1983. "Productivity and Labor Unions: An Application of the Theory of Self-Enforcing Contracts," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(2), pages 155-185, April.
    17. Klepper, Steven, 1996. "Entry, Exit, Growth, and Innovation over the Product Life Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 562-583, June.
    18. James M. Malcomson, 1997. "Contracts, Hold-Up, and Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 1916-1957, December.
    19. Jovanovic, Boyan & Lach, Saul, 1989. "Entry, Exit, and Diffusion with Learning by Doing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 690-699, September.
    20. Josh Ederington & Phillip McCalman, 2009. "International Trade And Industrial Dynamics," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(3), pages 961-989, August.
    21. Connolly, Robert A & Hirsch, Barry T & Hirschey, Mark, 1986. "Union Rent Seeking, Intangible Capital, and Market Value of the Firm," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 567-577, November.
    22. Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 1993. "The shakeout," Economics Working Papers 33, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    23. Hanazono, Makoto & Yang, Huanxing, 2009. "Dynamic entry and exit with uncertain cost positions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 474-487, May.
    24. Robert J. Gordon, 1991. "Productivity, Wages, and Prices Inside and Outside of Manufacturing in the U.S., Japan, and Europe," NBER Chapters, in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 153-207, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Grout, Paul A, 1984. "Investment and Wages in the Absence of Binding Contracts: A Nash Bargining Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 449-460, March.
    26. Robert J. Flanagan, 1999. "Macroeconomic Performance and Collective Bargaining: An International Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(3), pages 1150-1175, September.
    27. Peter Thompson & Mihaela Pintea, 2008. "Sorting, Selection, and Industry Shakeouts," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 33(1), pages 23-40, August.
    28. Horvath, Michael & Schivardi, Fabiano & Woywode, Michael, 2001. "On industry life-cycles: delay, entry, and shakeout in beer brewing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1023-1052, July.
    29. Flaig, Gebhard & Stadler, Manfred, 1994. "Success Breeds Success. The Dynamics of the Innovation Process," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 55-68.
    30. Tauman, Y & Weiss, Y, 1987. "Labor Unions and the Adoption of New Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(4), pages 477-501, October.
    31. Tor Jakob Klette & Samuel Kortum, 2004. "Innovating Firms and Aggregate Innovation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 986-1018, October.
    32. Petrakis, Emmanuel & Roy, Santanu, 1999. "Cost-Reducing Investment, Competition, and Industry Dynamics," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 381-401, May.
    33. Lucy Chennells & John Van Reenan, 1997. "Technical Change and Earnings in British Establishments," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 64(256), pages 587-604, November.
    34. Gotz, Georg, 2002. "Sunk costs, windows of profit opportunities, and the dynamics of entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(10), pages 1409-1436, December.
    35. Ian Dew-Becker & Robert J. Gordon, 2008. "The Role of Labor Market Changes in the Slowdown of European Productivity Growth," NBER Working Papers 13840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1982. "Selection and the Evolution of Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(3), pages 649-670, May.
    37. Acs, Zoltan J & Audretsch, David B, 1987. "Innovation, Market Structure, and Firm Size," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 567-574, November.
    38. Menezes-Filho, Naercio & Ulph, David & Van Reenen, John, 1998. "The determination of R&D: Empirical evidence on the role of unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 919-930, May.
    39. Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 1998. "Labour markets, bargaining and innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 931-939, May.
    40. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    41. Franco Malerba, 2007. "Innovation and the evolution of industries," Springer Books, in: Uwe Cantner & Franco Malerba (ed.), Innovation, Industrial Dynamics and Structural Transformation, pages 7-27, Springer.
    42. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2007. "Selection, Growth, and the Size Distribution of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1103-1144.
    43. Laincz, Christopher A., 2005. "Market structure and endogenous productivity growth: how do R&D subsidies affect market structure?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(1-2), pages 187-223, January.
    44. Machin, Stephen & Wadhwani, Sushil, 1991. "The Effects of Unions of Investment and Innovation: Evidence from WIRS," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 324-330, March.
    45. James M. Malcomson, 1997. "Contracts, Hold-Up, and Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 1916-1957, December.
    46. Hopenhayn, Hugo A., 1992. "Exit, selection, and the value of firms," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 621-653.
    47. Hopenhayn, Hugo A, 1992. "Entry, Exit, and Firm Dynamics in Long Run Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 1127-1150, September.
    48. Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 2001. " Strategic Innovation with Complete and Incomplete Labour Market Contracts," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(2), pages 265-282, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xavier Brédart & Eric Séverin & David Veganzones, 2021. "Human resources and corporate failure prediction modeling: Evidence from Belgium," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(7), pages 1325-1341, November.
    2. Evangelia Papapetrou & Pinelopi Tsalaporta, 2018. "Macroeconomic outcomes, collective bargaining and intersectoral productivity differentials: a panel approach," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 765-799, November.
    3. Wen, Jun & Yang, Di & Feng, Gen-Fu & Dong, Minyi & Chang, Chun-Ping, 2018. "Venture capital and innovation in China: The non-linear evidence," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 148-162.
    4. Erol Taymaz & Ebru Voyvoda & Kamil Yilmaz, 2021. "Transition to Democracy, Real Wages and Productivity: The Turkish Experience," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 2111, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bester, Helmut & Milliou, Chrysovalantou & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2009. "Wages and productivity growth in a dynamic oligopoly," Discussion Papers 2009/18, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    2. Bester, Helmut & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2004. "Wages and productivity growth in a dynamic monopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 83-100, January.
    3. Bester, Helmut & Petrakis, Emmanuel, 2003. "Wages and productivity growth in a competitive industry," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 52-69, March.
    4. Santanu Roy & Takashi Kamihigashi, 2004. "Investment, Externalities & Industry Dynamics," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 144, Econometric Society.
    5. Götz, Georg & Ederington, Josh, 2017. "Leapfrogging: Time of Entry and Firm Productivity," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168126, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Hristos Doucouliagos & Patrice Laroche, 2013. "Unions and Innovation: New Insights From the Cross-Country Evidence," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 467-491, April.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2013_028 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. S. Dobbelaere, 2003. "Joint Estimation of Price-Cost Margins and Union Bargaining Power for Belgian Manufacturing," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/171, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. Ufuk Akcigit & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1374-1443.
    10. David Greenstreet, 2007. "Exploiting Sequential Learning to Estimate Establishment-Level Productivity Dynamics and Decision Rules," Economics Series Working Papers 345, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    11. Tran, Hien Thu, 2019. "Institutional quality and market selection in the transition to market economy," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1-1.
    12. Ufuk Akcigit & William Kerr, 2015. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovation, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 15-020, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    13. Ufuk Akcigit & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1374-1443.
    14. Acemoglu, Daron & Cao, Dan, 2015. "Innovation by entrants and incumbents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 255-294.
    15. Justus Haucap & Christian Wey, 2004. "Unionisation structures and innovation incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 149-165, March.
    16. Nishimura, Kiyohiko G. & Nakajima, Takanobu & Kiyota, Kozo, 2005. "Does the natural selection mechanism still work in severe recessions?: Examination of the Japanese economy in the 1990s," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 53-78, September.
    17. Bianchini, Stefano & Pellegrino, Gabriele, 2019. "Innovation persistence and employment dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1171-1186.
    18. Roman Fossati, 2011. "Outsourcing versus Vertical Integration: A Dynamic Model of Industry Equilibrium," 2011 Meeting Papers 1421, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Constantine Manasakis & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2009. "Union structure and firms' incentives for cooperative R&D investments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(2), pages 665-693, May.
    20. Sengupta Aditi, 2010. "Environmental Regulation and Industry Dynamics," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-29, June.
    21. Şeker, Murat, 2012. "A structural model of firm and industry evolution: Evidence from Chile," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 891-913.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; Labor productivity; Oligopoly; Wage differentials; Productivity growth; Industry dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly
    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:6:p:923-930. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.