Advanced Search

Optimal Coexistence of Long-term and Short-term contracts in Labor Markets

Contents:

Author Info

  • Inés Macho-Stadler

    ()

  • David Pérez-Castrillo

    ()

  • Nicolás Porteiro

    ()

Abstract

We consider a market where firms hire workers to run their projects and such projects differ in profitability. At any period, each firm needs two workers to suc- cessfully run its project: a junior agent, with no specific skills, and a senior worker, whose effort is not verifiable. Senior workers differ in ability and their competence is revealed after they have worked as juniors in the market. We study the length of the contractual relationships between firms and workers in an environment where the matching between firms and workers is the result of market interaction. We show that, despite in a one-firm-one-worker set-up long-term contracts are the op- timal choice for firms, market forces often induce firms to use short-term contracts. Unless the market only consists of firms with very profitable projects, firms oper- ating highly profitable projects offer short-term contracts to ensure the service of high-ability workers and those with less lucrative projects also use short-term contracts to save on the junior workers' wage. Intermediate firms may (or may not) hire workers through long-term contracts.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://pareto.uab.es/wp/2011/87211.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC) in its series UFAE and IAE Working Papers with number 872.11.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 41
Date of creation: 05 May 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:aub:autbar:872.11

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 08193, Bellaterra, Barcelona
Phone: 34 93 592 1203
Web page: http://pareto.uab.cat
More information through EDIRC

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Xavier Vila).

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Matutes, Carmen & Regibeau, Pierre & Rockett, Katharine, 1994. "Compensation Schemes and Labor Market Competition: Piece Rate versus Wage Rate," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 325-53, Summer.
  2. Suman Ghosh & Michael Waldman, 2010. "Standard promotion practices versus up-or-out contracts," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 301-325.
  3. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre & Macho, Ines & Rey, Patrick & Salanie, Bernard, 1994. "Repeated moral hazard: The role of memory, commitment, and the access to credit markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1527-1553, October.
  4. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2007. "Beauty Is a Beast, Frog Is a Prince: Assortative Matching with Nontransferabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1073-1102, 07.
  5. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "Repeated Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 69-76, January.
  6. Eng Loh, 1994. "Employment probation as a sorting mechanism," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 47(3), pages 471-486, April.
  7. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Morelli, Massimo & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2001. "Occupational Choice and Dynamic Incentives," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 781-810, October.
  8. MARKO TERVIÖ, 2009. "Superstars and Mediocrities: Market Failure in the Discovery of Talent," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 829-850, 04.
  9. Konstantinos Serfes, 2008. "Endogenous matching in a market with heterogeneous principals and agents," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 587-619, March.
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.
Cited by:
  1. Cahuc, Pierre & Charlot, Olivier & Malherbet, Franck, 2012. "Explaining the Spread of Temporary Jobs and its Impact on Labor Turnover," CEPR Discussion Papers 8864, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aub:autbar:872.11

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Xavier Vila).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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