We consider an economy in which firms need to invest in capital before they can advertise a job, while applicants may have to compete for jobs. Our aim to investigate how this competition affects the investment decisions of firms. Our first finding shows that the economy always generates the right number of jobs. However, with random search firms under-invest in capital. In contrast, if workers can direct their search towards firms with different capital levels, the equilibrium is efficient. This result contrasts sharply with the predictions of models with ex post wage bargaining that never yield an efficien allocation. Moreover, our results extend the efficiency of auction mechanisms to an environment with non-contractible investments.
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Paper provided by Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de EconomÃa in its series Economics Working Papers with number
we035120.
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.:
Benoit Julien & John Kennes & Ian King, 2000.
"Bidding for Labor,"
Review of Economic Dynamics,
Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(4), pages 619-649, October.
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Julien, B. & Kennes, J. & King, I., 1998.
"Bidding for Labour,"
Discussion Papers
dp98-03, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
Acemoglu, Daron & Shimer, Robert, 1999.
"Holdups and Efficiency with Search Frictions,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(4), pages 827-49, November.
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