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Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: What Evidence is there for Monopsony?

Author

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  • ALISON L. BOOTH
  • PAMELA KATIC

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm, using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Estimation of this elasticity is of particular interest not only in its own right but also because of its relevance to the debate about the competitiveness of labour markets. The essence of monopsonistically competitive labour markets is that labour supply to a firm is imperfectly elastic with respect to the wage rate. The intuition is that, where workers have heterogeneous preferences or face mobility costs, firms can offer lower wages without immediately losing their workforce. This is in contrast to the perfectly competitive extreme, in which the elasticity is infinite. Therefore a simple test of whether labour markets are perfectly or imperfectly competitive involves estimating the elasticity of the labour supply to a firm. We find that the Australian wage elasticity of labour supply to a firm is around 0.71, only slightly smaller than the figure of 0.75 reported by Manning (2003) for the UK. These estimates are so far from the perfectly competitive assumption of an infinite elasticity that it would be difficult to make a case that labour markets are perfectly competitive.
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Suggested Citation

  • Alison L. Booth & Pamela Katic, 2011. "Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: What Evidence is there for Monopsony?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 87(278), pages 359-369, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:87:y:2011:i:278:p:359-369
    DOI: j.1475-4932.2011.00728.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Jahn, Elke & Hirsch, Boris, 2012. "Is there monopsonistic discrimination against immigrants? First evidence from linked employer employee data," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 65417, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Ronald Bachmann & Gökay Demir & Hanna Frings, 2022. "Labor Market Polarization, Job Tasks, and Monopsony Power," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(S), pages 11-49.
    3. Ronald Bachmann & Hanna Frings, 2017. "Monopsonistic competition, low-wage labour markets, and minimum wages – An empirical analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(51), pages 5268-5286, November.
    4. Boris Hirsch, 2016. "Gender wage discrimination," World of Labour, LISER, pages 310-310, November.
    5. Witajewski-Baltvilks Jan & Boratyński Jakub & Jeszke Robert & Pyrka Maciej, 2025. "Workers’ Earnings Losses Due to the Low-Carbon Transition. Theory and Application in a CGE Model," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 12(59), pages 186-204.
    6. Heise, Arne, 2018. "Reconciling Facts with Fiction, or: A Theoretical Speculation of why the Minimum Wage has no Discernible Effect on Employment," MPRA Paper 92483, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Hirsch, Boris & Jahn, Elke J. & Schnabel, Claus, 2013. "The cyclical behaviour of employers' monopsony power and workers' wages," Discussion Papers 89, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    8. Dobbelaere, Sabien & Kiyota, Kozo & Mairesse, Jacques, 2015. "Product and labor market imperfections and scale economies: Micro-evidence on France, Japan and the Netherlands," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 290-322.
    9. Anna Sokolova & Todd Sorensen, 2021. "Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Meta-Analysis," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 27-55, January.
    10. Samiul Haque & Micheal S. Delgado, 2024. "Labor market monopsony power in the manufacturing sector of four Sub‐Saharan African countries," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 38(3), pages 331-349, September.
    11. Bachmann, Ronald & Frings, Hanna, 2014. "Monopsony competition and the minimum wage: Evidence from Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100367, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Clémence Berson, 2016. "Local labor markets and taste-based discrimination," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-21, December.
    13. Bredemeier, Christian, 2019. "Gender Gaps in Pay and Inter-Firm Mobility," IZA Discussion Papers 12785, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Céline Detilleux & Nick Deschacht, 2024. "The gender gap in the wage sensitivity of job transitions: a decomposition analysis," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 58(1), pages 1-12, December.
    15. Witajewski-Baltvilks Jan & Boratyński Jakub, 2021. "Workers or Consumers: Who Pays for Low-Carbon Transition – Theoretical Analysis of Welfare Change in General Equilibrium Setting," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 8(55), pages 231-245, January.
    16. Céline Detilleux & Nick Deschacht, 2021. "The causal effect of the number of children on gender‐specific labour supply elasticities to the firm," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 2-24, January.
    17. Agustin Velasquez & Svetlana Vtyurina, 2019. "How Does Taxation Affect Hours Worked in EU New Member States?," IMF Working Papers 2019/130, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Hervé, Justine, 2023. "Specialists or generalists? Cross-industry mobility and wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Boris Hirsch & Elke J. Jahn & Alan Manning & Michael Oberfichtner, 2022. "The Urban Wage Premium in Imperfect Labor Markets," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(S), pages 111-136.
    20. Ihsaan Bassier & Arindrajit Dube & Suresh Naidu, 2022. "Monopsony in Movers: The Elasticity of Labor Supply to Firm Wage Policies," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(S), pages 50-86.
    21. Brandon Vick, 2017. "Measuring links between labor monopsony and the gender pay gap in Brazil," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.
    22. : Andrew Minster & Danielle Kavanagh-Smith & Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi, 2018. "Institutionalist Review and Analysis of Immigration Effects on U.S. Jobs Markets," SCEPA working paper series. 2018-01, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    23. Rafael Sánchez & Javier Finot & Mauricio G. Villena, 2022. "Gender wage gap and firm market power: evidence from Chile," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(18), pages 2109-2121, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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