IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/reviec/v12y2004i1p27-40.html

The Political Economy of the “Minimum‐Wage Institution” in an Internationally Integrated Market

Author

Listed:
  • Emmanuel Petrakis
  • Minas Vlassis

Abstract

The paper explores the political economy of the “minimum‐wage institution (MWI)” in an internationally integrated product market. The authors consider a two‐sector Economic Union (EU) with a perfectly competitive agricultural sector and a unionized oligopolistic manufacturing sector in which there exist productivity asymmetries across firms. It is shown that efficient firms have an incentive to strategically opt for intercountry minimum‐wage agreements high enough to raise their inefficient rivals’ costs and thus gain business in equilibrium. The unions of workers in all countries also find these agreements in their best interest. As a consequence, the MWI may emerge as the equilibrium institutional resolution of alternative political processes (i.e., an EU‐wide referendum or special‐interest politics), despite its negative effect on aggregate employment.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuel Petrakis & Minas Vlassis, 2004. "The Political Economy of the “Minimum‐Wage Institution” in an Internationally Integrated Market," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 27-40, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:reviec:v:12:y:2004:i:1:p:27-40
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9396.2004.00429.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9396.2004.00429.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9396.2004.00429.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    2. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173.
    3. Alison Booth, 2012. "The Economic Behavior of Trade Unions," CEPR Discussion Papers 670, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    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. Kraft, Kornelius & Rammer,Christian & Gottschalk, Sandra, 2012. "Minimum wages and competition: The case of the German roofing sector," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-083, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    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. Isabelle Terraz, 2016. "Economic Growth: The Case of Irreversibility of Investment with Bargaining Power of Workers," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 75-86, March.
    2. Emmanuel Petrakis & Minas Vlassis, 2004. "Endogenous wage bargaining institutions in oligopolistic sectors," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 24(1), pages 55-73, July.
    3. Lars Calmfors, 2004. "Activation versus Other Employment Policies – Lessons for Germany," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 5(02), pages 35-42, October.
    4. Camille Logeay & Sven Schreiber, 2006. "Testing the effectiveness of the French work-sharing reform: a forecasting approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(17), pages 2053-2068.
    5. Elías Albagli I. & Pablo García S. & Jorge Restrepo L., 2004. "Evaluating Labor Market Flexibility in Chile from an International Perspective," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 7(2), pages 27-46, August.
    6. Guglielmo Caporale & Michael Chui & Stephen Hall & Brian Henry, 2003. "Evaluating the Gains to Cooperation in the G-3," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 337-356, December.
    7. P. Du Caju & C. Fuss & L. Wintr, 2012. "Sectoral differences in downward real wage rigidity: workforce composition, institutions, technology and competition [Branchenspezifische Unterschiede in der Abwärtsreallohnstarrheit: Arbeitskraftstruktur, Institutionen, Technologie und Wettbewerb," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 45(1), pages 7-22, March.
    8. Hall, Peter A. & Gingerich, Daniel W., 2004. "Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Macroeconomy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/5, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    9. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    10. Chéron, Arnaud & Hairault, Jean-Olivier & Langot, François, 2004. "Labor Market Institutions and the Employment-Productivity Trade-Off: A Wage Posting Approach," IZA Discussion Papers 1364, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Sergio Destefanis & Matteo Fragetta & Giuseppe Mastromatteo & Nazzareno Ruggiero, 2020. "The Beveridge curve in the OECD before and after the great recession," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(3), pages 411-436, September.
    12. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6120 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Vincenzo Cassino & Richard Thornton, 2002. "Do changes in structural factors explain movements in the equilibrium rate of unemployment?," Bank of England working papers 153, Bank of England.
    14. Milen Velev, 2015. "A research on the relationship between the unemployment rate and the inflation rate in Bulgaria," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 40-59,60-79.
    15. Lei Lei Song & John Freebairn & Don Harding, 2001. "Policy Options to Reduce Unemployment: TRYM Simulations," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2001n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Brown, Alessio J.G. & Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2011. "Comparing the effectiveness of employment subsidies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 168-179, April.
    17. Richard Jackman & Richard Layard & Marco Manacorda & Barbara Petrongolo, 1997. "European versus US Unemployment: Different Responses to Increased Demand for skill?," CEP Discussion Papers dp0349, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. Fanti, Luciano & Gori, Luca, 2013. "Efficient bargaining versus right to manage: A stability analysis in a Cournot duopoly with trade unions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 205-211.
    19. Daniel Cardona & Fernando Sánchez-Losada, 2004. "The Unemployment Benefit System: a Redistributive or an Insurance Institution?," DEA Working Papers 8, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    20. Laurence M. Ball & Niamh Sheridan, 2004. "Does Inflation Targeting Matter?," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, pages 249-276, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Kee, Hiau Looi & Hoon, Hian Teck, 2005. "Trade, capital accumulation and structural unemployment: an empirical study of the Singapore economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 125-152, June.

    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:reviec:v:12:y:2004:i:1:p:27-40. 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=0965-7576 .

    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.