IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/16291.html

Infrastructure Investment and Labor Monopsony Power

Author

Listed:
  • Kaboski, Joseph
  • Brooks, Wyatt
  • Kondo, Illenin
  • Li, Yao Amber
  • Qian, Wei

Abstract

In this paper we study whether or not transportation infrastructure disrupts local monopsony power in labor markets using an expansion of the national highway system in India. Using panel data on manufacturing firms, we find that monopsony power in labor markets is reduced among firms near newly constructed highways relative to firms that remain far from highways. We estimate that the highways reduce labor markdowns significantly. We use changes in the composition of inputs to identify these effects separately from the reduction of output markups that occurs simultaneously. The impacts of highway construction are therefore pro-competitive in both output and input markets, and act to increase the share of income that labor receives by 1.8--2.3 percentage points.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaboski, Joseph & Brooks, Wyatt & Kondo, Illenin & Li, Yao Amber & Qian, Wei, 2021. "Infrastructure Investment and Labor Monopsony Power," CEPR Discussion Papers 16291, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP16291
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ziran Ding & Jose Garcia‐Louzao & Valentin Jouvanceau, 2025. "The dynamics of product and labour market power: Evidence from Lithuania," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 165-194, January.
    3. Tristany Armangue-Jubert & Tancredi Rapone & Alessandro Ruggieri, 2026. "Firm Dynamics, Monopsony, and Aggregate Productivity Differences," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 59, January.
    4. Bossavie, Laurent & Cho, Yoonyoung & Heath, Rachel, 2023. "The effects of international scrutiny on manufacturing workers: Evidence from the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    5. Alejandro Estefan & Roberto Gerhard & Joseph P. Kaboski & Illenin O. Kondo & Wei Qian, 2024. "Outsourcing Policy and Worker Outcomes: Causal Evidence from a Mexican Ban," NBER Working Papers 32024, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Chatterjee, Santanu & Lebesmuehlbacher, Thomas & Narayanan, Abhinav, 2025. "Road infrastructure and skill premium: Evidence from Indian manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    7. Pérez, Jorge & Vial, Felipe & Zárate, Román, 2022. "Urban Transit Infrastructure: Spatial Mismatch and Labor Market Power," Research Department working papers 1992, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    8. Chau, Nancy H. & Kanbur, Ravi & Soundararajan, Vidhya, "undated". "Employer Power and Employment in Developing Countries," Applied Economics and Policy Working Paper Series 324053, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    9. Passmore, Reid & Watkins, Kari E. & Guensler, Randall, 2021. "BikewaySim Technology Transfer: City of Atlanta, Georgia," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt23n9389j, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    10. Schiavone, Ansel, 2023. "Labor market concentration and labor share dynamics for US regional industries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    11. Francesco Amodio & Emanuele Brancati & Nicolás de Roux & Michele Di Maio, 2025. "Labor Market Institutions and Wage-Setting Power: Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," Documentos CEDE 2025-26, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    12. Kondo, Illenin O. & Li, Yao Amber & Qian, Wei, 2024. "Trade liberalization and labor monopsony: Evidence from Chinese firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    13. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    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:cpr:ceprdp:16291. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.