We build a theoretical model to study the welfare effects and resulting policy implications of firms’ market power in a frictional labor market. Our environment has two main characteristics: wages play a role in allocating labor across firms and there is a finite number of agents. We find that the decentralized equilibrium is inefficient and that the firms’ market power results in the misallocation of workers from the high to the low-productivity firms. A minimum wage forces the low-productivity firms to increase their wage, leading them to hire even more often thereby exacerbating the inefficiencies. Moderate unemployment benefits can increase welfare because they limit firms’ market power by improving the workers’ outside option.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
17093.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure and Pricing - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
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Marja-Liisa Halko & Klaus Kultti & and Juha Virrankoski, 2008.
"Search Direction And Wage Dispersion,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 111-134, 02.
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