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Efficiency wages and bargaining

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  • Frank Walsh

Abstract

In contrast to results found in the literature to date this paper shows that the efficiency wage and the wage that solves a bargaining problem will often be independent. If worker bargaining power is weak an efficiency wage equilibrium where bargaining has no affect on the contract emerges. If worker bargaining power is strong we have a bargaining contract that is unaffected by the efficiency wage constraint. Empirical evidence shows that efficiency wage effects matter only for non-union workers. That is workers with weak bargaining power. For workers with stronger bargaining power (unionized workers) there is a significant union wage premium but supervision wage affects are unimportant. Copyright 2012 Oxford University Press 2012 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

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  • Frank Walsh, 2012. "Efficiency wages and bargaining," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 635-654, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:64:y:2012:i:4:p:635-654
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    Cited by:

    1. Claus-Jochen Haake & Thorsten Upmann & Papatya Duman, 2020. "Wage Bargaining and Employment Revisited: Separability and Efficiency in Collective Bargaining," CESifo Working Paper Series 8422, CESifo.
    2. Claus-Jochen Haake & Thorsten Upmann & Papatya Duman, 2019. "The Decomposability of the Nash Bargaining Solution in Labor Markets," Working Papers CIE 128, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    3. Jan Morten Dyrstad, 2015. "Resource curse avoidance: Governmental intervention and wage formation in the Norwegian petroleum sector," Working Paper Series 16715, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
    4. Claus‐Jochen Haake & Thorsten Upmann & Papatya Duman, 2023. "Wage bargaining and employment revisited: separability and efficiency in collective bargaining," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(2), pages 403-440, April.

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