IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/por/fepwps/477.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Theory of Collusion in the Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Gonzaga

    (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto)

  • António Brandão

    (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto)

  • Hélder Vasconcelos

    (Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto)

Abstract

Despite the major concern of the competition authority to forbid and prosecute formal cartels who cooperatively fix prices, limit production or divide markets, there seems to be little regulation and investigation of collusive practices in the labor market. For that reason, this article analyzes the economic effects of cooperative wage fixing in industries that use one type of labor as the only input, while the other assumptions are kept as general as possible. Under the one input assumption it was found that collusion in the labor market and collusion in the product market have exactly the same results, which include the rise in prices and the fall in output, employment and wages. The higher prices and lower wages in cartelized industries are not only associated with the elimination of the well known business stealing effect, but also with the elimination of the labor force stealing effect. The conclusions in this paper can be generalized to industries that use more than one input, as long as the cartel is able to fix the prices of all the inputs.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Gonzaga & António Brandão & Hélder Vasconcelos, 2013. "Theory of Collusion in the Labor Market," FEP Working Papers 477, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    • Handle: RePEc:por:fepwps:477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/workingpapers/wp477.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Natalya Shelkova, 2015. "Low-Wage Labor Markets and the Power of Suggestion," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(1), pages 61-88, March.
    2. James W. Friedman, 1971. "A Non-cooperative Equilibrium for Supergames," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(1), pages 1-12.
    3. Steven C. Salop, 1979. "Monopolistic Competition with Outside Goods," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 141-156, Spring.
    4. Fabian Bergès-Sennou & Stéphane Caprice, 2008. "Is Competition or Collusion in the Product Market Relevant for Labour Markets?," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 74(3), pages 273-298.
    5. Fabian Berges & Stéphane Caprice, 2008. "Is competition or collusion in the product market relevant for labour market?," Post-Print hal-02655208, HAL.
    6. Arijit Mukherjee & Luís Vasconcelos, 2012. "Star Wars: Exclusive Talent and Collusive Outcomes in Labor Markets," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 754-782, October.
    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. Pedro Gonzaga & António Brandão & Helder Vasconcelos, 2014. "Theory of Semi-Collusion in the Labor Market," FEP Working Papers 522, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    2. Rasch, Alexander & Wambach, Achim, 2009. "Internal decision-making rules and collusion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 703-715, November.
    3. Michele Polo, 2018. "Entry games and free entry equilibria," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 11, pages 312-342, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Stefano Colombo, 2012. "Collusion in two models of spatial competition with quantity-setting firms," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 48(1), pages 45-69, February.
    5. Jean J. Gabszewicz & Jacques-François Thisse, 2000. "Microeconomic theories of imperfect competition," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(1), pages 47-99.
    6. Verboven, Frank, 1998. "Localized Competition, Multimarket Operation, and Collusive Behavior," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 371-398, May.
    7. Hasnas, Irina & Wey, Christian, 2015. "Full versus partial collusion among brands and private label producers," DICE Discussion Papers 190, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    8. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    9. Luca Lambertini, 2000. "Technology and Cartel Stability under Vertical Differentiation," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(4), pages 421-442, November.
    10. Francisco Martínez Sánchez, 2016. "Collusion, Customization and Transparency," Working Papers. Serie AD 2016-03, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    11. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and industrial organization," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 511-517.
    12. Frank Verboben, 1997. "Localized Competition, Multimarket Operation and Collusive Behavior," CIG Working Papers FS IV 97-03, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    13. Stefano Colombo, 2013. "Predation in Space," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 9-22, March.
    14. Colombo, Stefano, 2013. "Cartels in the unidirectional Hotelling model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 690-696.
    15. de Palma, André & Lindsey, Robin, 2001. "Optimal timetables for public transportation," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 789-813, September.
    16. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    17. Motta, Massimo & Polo, Michele, 2003. "Leniency programs and cartel prosecution," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 347-379, March.
    18. Rainer Andergassen & Guido Candela & Paolo Figini, 2017. "The management of tourism destinations," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(1), pages 49-65, February.
    19. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "Executive Compensation, Strategic Competition, and Relative Performance Evaluation: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 1999-2043, December.
    20. Pierre-Pascal Gendron, 1996. "Corporation Tax Asymmetries: An Oligopolistic Supergame Analysis," Working Papers ecpap-96-04, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collusion; labor market; oligopoly; oligopsony; business stealing effect; labor force stealing effect.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L44 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprise, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:por:fepwps:477. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fepuppt.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.