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The Economics of Labor Market Intermediation: An Analytic Framework

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  • Autor, David

    (MIT)

Abstract

Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) are entities or institutions that interpose themselves between workers and firms to facilitate, inform, or regulate how workers are matched to firms, how work is accomplished, and how conflicts are resolved. This paper offers a conceptual foundation for analyzing the economic role played by these understudied institutions, and to develop a qualitative and, in some cases, quantitative sense of their significance to market operation and welfare. Though heterogeneous, I argue that LMIs share a common function, which is to redress – and in some cases exploit – a set of endemic departures of labor market operation from the efficient neoclassical benchmark. At a rudimentary level, LMIs such as online job boards reduce search frictions by aggregating and reselling disparate information at a cost below which workers and firms could obtain themselves. Beyond passively supplying information, a set of LMIs forcibly redress adverse selection problems in labor markets by compelling workers and firms to reveal normally hidden credentials, such as criminal background, academic standing, or financial integrity. At their most forceful, LMIs such as labor unions and centralized job matching clearinghouses resolve coordination and collective action failures in markets by tightly controlling – even monopolizing – the process by which workers and firms meet, match and negotiate. A unifying observation of the analytic framework is that participation in the activities of a given LMI are typically voluntary for one side of the market and compulsory for the other; workers cannot, for example, elect to suppress their criminal records and firms cannot opt out of collective bargaining. I argue that the nature of participation in an LMI’s activities – voluntary or compulsory, and for which parties – is dictated by the market imperfection that it addresses and thus tells us much about its economic function.

Suggested Citation

  • Autor, David, 2008. "The Economics of Labor Market Intermediation: An Analytic Framework," IZA Discussion Papers 3705, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3705
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    2. Eleni D. Rompoti & Alexis D. Ioannides, 2023. "“Pseudo-Contracted” Workers as a Means of Bypassing Labour Law in Greece," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-27, November.
    3. Adrienne T. Edisis, 2016. "The Effect of Unemployment Insurance on Temporary Help Services Employment," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 484-503, December.
    4. Iva Tomic, 2012. "The Efficiency of the Matching Process: Exploring the Impact of Regional Employment Offices in Croatia," Working Papers 1204, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb.
    5. Mercedes Mateo Díaz & Lourdes Rodriguez-Chamussy, 2016. "Cashing in on Education," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 25082, December.
    6. Cristiano CODAGNONE & Giovanni LIVA & Egidijus BARCEVICIUS & Gianluca MISURACA & Luka KLIMAVICIUTE & Michele BENEDETTI & Irene VANINI & Giancarlo VECCHI & Emily RYEN GLOINSON & Katherine STEWART & Sti, 2020. "Assessing the impacts of digital government transformation in the EU: Conceptual framework and empirical case studies," JRC Research Reports JRC120865, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    7. Moshe A. Barach & Joseph M. Golden & John J. Horton, 2020. "Steering in Online Markets: The Role of Platform Incentives and Credibility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4047-4070, September.
    8. Paolo Barbieri & Giorgio Cutuli, 2018. "Dual Labour Market Intermediaries in Italy: How to Lay off “Lemons”—Thereby Creating a Problem of Adverse Selection," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(4), pages 477-502, December.
    9. Cristiano Codagnone & Fabienne Abadie & Federico Biagi, 2016. "The Future of Work in the ‘Sharing Economy’. Market Efficiency and Equitable Opportunities or Unfair Precarisation?," JRC Research Reports JRC101280, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    10. Fumio Ohtake & SunYoun Lee, "undated". "Procrastinators and hyperbolic discounters: Probability of transition from temporary to full-time employment," ISER Discussion Paper 0841, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    11. Moshe A. Barach & Joseph M. Golden & John J. Horton, 2019. "Steering in Online Markets: The Role of Platform Incentives and Credibility," NBER Working Papers 25917, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mateo-Berganza Díaz, María Mercedes & Rodríguez Chamussy, Lourdes, 2016. "Cashing in on Education: Women, Childcare, and Prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 8255, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    adverse selection; temporary-help; internet; job search; unions; intermediation; collective action;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • J8 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards

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