IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/indres/v63y2024i2p132-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Some facts about concentrated labor markets in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Elizabeth Weber Handwerker
  • Matthew Dey

Abstract

We estimate employer concentration by occupation in the United States from 2003 to 2018. Findings include the following: (1) concentration is a characteristic of small labor markets; (2) patterns of concentrated employment differ from patterns of employment in very large employers, with overlap largely in the public sector; (3) the public sector and hospital industry play prominent roles in concentrated employment; (4) more concentrated labor markets are associated with slightly lower wages, only within the private sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Elizabeth Weber Handwerker & Matthew Dey, 2024. "Some facts about concentrated labor markets in the United States," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 132-151, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:indres:v:63:y:2024:i:2:p:132-151
    DOI: 10.1111/irel.12341
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12341
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/irel.12341?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gregor Jarosch & Jan Sebastian Nimczik & Isaac Sorkin, 2024. "Granular Search, Market Structure, and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(6), pages 3569-3607.
    2. Azar, José & Marinescu, Ioana & Steinbaum, Marshall & Taska, Bledi, 2020. "Concentration in US labor markets: Evidence from online vacancy data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Glenn Ellison & Edward L. Glaeser & William R. Kerr, 2010. "What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1195-1213, June.
    4. Efraim Benmelech & Nittai K. Bergman & Hyunseob Kim, 2022. "Strong Employers and Weak Employees: How Does Employer Concentration Affect Wages?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(S), pages 200-250.
    5. Claudia Macaluso & Brad Hershbein & Chen Yeh, 2019. "Concentration in U.S. local labor markets: evidence from vacancy and employment data," 2019 Meeting Papers 1336, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Ben Lipsius, 2018. "Labor Market Concentration does not Explain the Falling Labor Share," 2018 Papers pli1202, Job Market Papers.
    7. José Azar & Ioana Marinescu & Marshall Steinbaum, 2019. "Measuring Labor Market Power Two Ways," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 317-321, May.
    8. Elena Prager & Matt Schmitt, 2021. "Employer Consolidation and Wages: Evidence from Hospitals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(2), pages 397-427, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Hambur, 2023. "Did Labour Market Concentration Lower Wages Growth Pre-COVID?," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2023-02, Reserve Bank of Australia.

    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. Marinescu, Ioana & Ouss, Ivan & Pape, Louis-Daniel, 2021. "Wages, hires, and labor market concentration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 506-605.
    2. Samuel Dodini & Kjell Salvanes & Alexander L.P. Willén & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2021. "The Dynamics of Power in Labor Markets: Monopolistic Unions versus Monopsonistic Employers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9495, CESifo.
    3. Bassanini, Andrea & Batut, Cyprien & Caroli, Eve, 2021. "Labor Market Concentration and Stayers' Wages: Evidence from France," IZA Discussion Papers 14912, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Bassanini, Andrea & Batut, Cyprien & Caroli, Eve, 2023. "Labor Market Concentration and Wages: Incumbents versus New Hires," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Vitor Costa, 2023. "Local Labor Market Effects of Mergers and Acquisitions in Developing Countries: Evidence from Brazil," Papers 2306.08797, arXiv.org.
    6. Albert Jan Hummel, 2021. "Monopsony Power, Income Taxation and Welfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 9128, CESifo.
    7. Albert Jan Hummel, 2021. "Monopsony power, income taxation and welfare," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-051/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Gregor Jarosch & Jan Sebastian Nimczik & Isaac Sorkin, 2024. "Granular Search, Market Structure, and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(6), pages 3569-3607.
    9. Alan Manning, 2021. "Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Review," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 3-26, January.
    10. Gregor Jarosch & Isaac Sorkin & Jan Sebastian Nimczik, 2019. "Granular Search, Concentration and Wages," 2019 Meeting Papers 1018, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Rudolf Winter-Ebmer & Jasmin Anderlik & Malika Jumaniyozova & Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2024. "Monopsony: Wages, wage bargaining and job requirements," Economics working papers 2024-15, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    12. Yue Qiu & Aaron Sojourner, 2023. "Labor-Market Concentration and Labor Compensation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 475-503, May.
    13. Zhuravleva, Nadezhda, 2021. "How Bad Is Labor Market Concentration?: Evidence From Soviet (Urban) Satellites," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242405, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Mandelman, Federico & Yu, Yang & Zanetti, Francesco, 2021. "The “Matthew effect” and market concentration: Search complementarities and monopsony power," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 62-90.
    15. Chen Yeh & Claudia Macaluso & Brad Hershbein, 2022. "Monopsony in the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(7), pages 2099-2138, July.
    16. Steven Berry & Martin Gaynor & Fiona Scott Morton, 2019. "Do Increasing Markups Matter? Lessons from Empirical Industrial Organization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 44-68, Summer.
    17. Monica Langella & Alan Manning, 2021. "The measure of monopsony," CEP Discussion Papers dp1780, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Kevin Rinz, 2022. "Did Timing Matter? Life Cycle Differences in Effects of Exposure to the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(3), pages 703-735.
    19. Francesco Devicienti & Elena Grinza & Alessandro Manello & Davide Vannoni, 2025. "Employer cooperation, productivity and wages: new evidence from inter‐firm formal network agreements," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 92(365), pages 1-41, January.
    20. Brenčič, Vera, 2024. "Distribution of vacancies and new hires across employers: Implications for job offers, skill requirements, and employers’ search outcomes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    More about this item

    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:bla:indres:v:63:y:2024:i:2:p:132-151. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0019-8676 .

    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.