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Labour market oligopsonistic competition: The effect of worker immobility on wages

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  • Michaelides, Marios

Abstract

We suggest that firms in a local labour market may be able to exploit worker mobility costs and offer immobile workers wages that are lower than their marginal product. If so, the ability of employers to exploit worker immobility in setting wages would decline in the competitiveness of the local labour market. We test this intuition using a measure of individual mobility costs and measures of local labour market competition. Our findings suggest that worker immobility causes substantial wage variation across workers in small, weakly competitive markets, and in occupations where wages are individually bargained.

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  • Michaelides, Marios, 2010. "Labour market oligopsonistic competition: The effect of worker immobility on wages," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 230-239, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:17:y:2010:i:1:p:230-239
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    2. Daeyoung Jeong, 2019. "Job market signaling with imperfect competition among employers," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(4), pages 1139-1167, December.
    3. Juho Jokinen, 2020. "The wage curve and local monopsony power," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 64(1), pages 159-183, February.
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