IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehu/biltok/5704.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Timing of Wage Setting when Firms Invest in R&D

Author

Listed:
  • Bárcena Ruiz, Juan Carlos
  • Campo Corredera, María Luz

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the effect that the timing of wage setting (i. e. whether wages set sequentially or simultaneously) has on the investment in R&D of firms, when that investment increases the productivity of labor, in the context of a Cournot duopoly. Contrary to the result obtained in the literature on wage bargaining, we obtain that unions may choose to set wages simultaneously. This is obtained if the size of the market is small enough and the efficiency of the R&D technology is great enought. It is in this case that firms spend most on R&D. By contrast, when unions choose to set wages sequentially, spending by firms on R&D is at its lowest.

Suggested Citation

  • Bárcena Ruiz, Juan Carlos & Campo Corredera, María Luz, 2003. "Timing of Wage Setting when Firms Invest in R&D," BILTOKI 1134-8984, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Economía Aplicada III (Econometría y Estadística).
    • Handle: RePEc:ehu:biltok:5704
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://addi.ehu.es/handle/10810/5704
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. d'Aspremont, Claude & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1988. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1133-1137, December.
    2. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    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. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173, Decembrie.
    5. Davidson, Carl, 1988. "Multiunit Bargaining in Oligopolistic Industries," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(3), pages 397-422, July.
    6. Katz, Lawrence F. & Autor, David H., 1999. "Changes in the wage structure and earnings inequality," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 26, pages 1463-1555, Elsevier.
    7. Daron Acemoglu, 1999. "Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1259-1278, December.
    8. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 1998. "Why Do New Technologies Complement Skills? Directed Technical Change and Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1055-1089.
    10. 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.
    11. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Manning, Alan, 1987. "An Integration of Trade Union Models in a Sequential Bargaining Framework," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(385), pages 121-139, March.
    13. 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.
    14. Barcena-Ruiz, Juan Carlos & Campo, Maria Luz, 2000. "Short-term or long-term labor contracts," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 249-260, May.
    15. Fallick, Bruce C & Hassett, Kevin A, 1999. "Investment and Union Certification," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(3), pages 570-582, July.
    16. Calabuig, Vicente & Gonzalez-Maestre, Miguel, 2002. "Union structure and incentives for innovation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 177-192, March.
    17. Barcena-Ruiz, Juan Carlos, 2003. "Politically preferred wage bargaining structures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 341-353, June.
    18. Booth,Alison L., 1994. "The Economics of the Trade Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521468398.
    19. Henrick Horn & Asher Wolinsky, 1988. "Bilateral Monopolies and Incentives for Merger," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 408-419, Autumn.
    20. Juan Carlos Bárcena-Ruiz & María Luz Campo, 2001. "¿Negociación salarial secuencial o simultánea?," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 28(2 Year 20), pages 182-202, December.
    21. 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.
    22. Dobson, Paul W., 1994. "Multifirm unions and the incentive to adopt pattern bargaining in oligopoly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 87-100, January.
    23. Ulph, Alistair & Ulph, David, 1998. "Labour markets, bargaining and innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 931-939, May.
    24. Dowrick, Steve & Spencer, Barbara J, 1994. "Union Attitudes to Labor-Saving Innovation: When Are Unions Luddites?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(2), pages 316-344, April.
    25. 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.
    26. Corneo, Giacomo, 1995. "National wage bargaining in an internationally integrated product market," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 503-520, September.
    27. De Fraja, Giovanni, 1993. "Staggered vs. synchronised wage setting in oligopoly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1507-1522, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Juan Carlos Bárcena‐Ruiz & M. Luz Campo, 2009. "R&D Investments And Sequential Wage Negotiations," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 183-202, September.
    2. Debasmita Basak & Andreas Hoefele & Arijit Mukherjee, 2014. "Union Bargaining Power and Product Innovation: Relevance of the Preference Function," CESifo Working Paper Series 5007, CESifo.
    3. Calabuig, Vicente & Gonzalez-Maestre, Miguel, 2002. "Union structure and incentives for innovation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 177-192, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Justus Haucap & Christian Wey, 2004. "Unionisation structures and innovation incentives," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 149-165, March.
    6. Basak, Debasmita & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2018. "Labour unionisation structure and product innovation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 98-110.
    7. Constantine Manasakis & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2009. "Union structure and firms' incentives for cooperative R&D investments," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 665-693, May.
    8. Barcena-Ruiz, Juan Carlos, 2003. "Politically preferred wage bargaining structures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 341-353, June.
    9. Elias Asproudis & Maria Gil-Moltó, 2015. "Green Trade Unions: Structure, Wages and Environmental Technology," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 60(2), pages 165-189, February.
    10. Justus Haucap & Christian Wey, 2002. "Unionization Structures and Firms' Incentives for Productivity Enhancing Investments," CIG Working Papers FS IV 02-10, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    11. Beladi, Hamid & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2017. "Union bargaining power, subcontracting and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 90-104.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. Asproudis, Elias, 2011. "Trade union structure with environmental concern and firms' technological choice," MPRA Paper 28767, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kjell Erik Lommerud & Odd Rune Straume, 2012. "Employment Protection Versus Flexicurity: On Technology Adoption in Unionised Firms," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 177-199, March.
    17. Luciano Fanti & Nicola Meccheri, 2017. "Unionization Regimes, Capacity Choice by Firms and Welfare Outcomes," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(6), pages 661-681, December.
    18. Hendel, Igal & Shapiro, Joel & Willen, Paul, 2005. "Educational opportunity and income inequality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 841-870, June.
    19. 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.
    20. Mukherjee, Arijit & Pennings, Enrico, 2011. "Unionization structure, licensing and innovation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 232-241, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unions; R&D; productivity of labor; wage setting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    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:ehu:biltok:5704. 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: Alcira Macías (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deehues.html .

    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.