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Competitive Wages in a Match with Ordered Contracts

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  • Muriel Niederle

Abstract

A recent antitrust lawsuit against the National Residency Matching Program renewed interest in understanding the effects of a centralized match on wages of medical residents. Bulow and Levin (forthcoming) propose a simple model of the NRMP, in which firms set impersonal salaries simultaneously, before matching with workers, and show that a match leads to lower aggregate wages compared to any competitive outcome. This paper models a feature present in the NRMP, ordered contracts, that allows firms to set several contracts while determining the order in which they try to fill these contracts. I show that the low wage equilibrium of Bulow and Levin is not robust to this feature of the NRMP, and competitive wages are once more an equilibrium outcome. Furthermore, a match with ordered contracts has different properties than former models of centralized matches with multiple contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Muriel Niederle, 2006. "Competitive Wages in a Match with Ordered Contracts," NBER Working Papers 12334, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12334
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    1. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2004. "Market Culture: How Norms Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000018, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Crawford, Vincent P & Knoer, Elsie Marie, 1981. "Job Matching with Heterogeneous Firms and Workers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 437-450, March.
    3. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The Gastroenterology Fellowship Market: Should There Be a Match?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 372-375, May.
    4. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2003. "Unraveling Reduces Mobility in a Labor Market: Gastroenterology with and without a Centralized Match," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1342-1352, December.
    5. Jeremy Bulow & Jonathan Levin, 2006. "Matching and Price Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 652-668, June.
    6. Roth, Alvin E., 2003. "The origins, history, and design of the resident match," Scholarly Articles 35059715, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    7. Roth, Alvin E. & Sotomayor, Marilda, 1992. "Two-sided matching," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, in: R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 485-541, Elsevier.
    8. C. Nicholas McKinney & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The Collapse of a Medical Labor Clearinghouse (and Why Such Failures Are Rare)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 878-889, June.
    9. John William Hatfield & Paul R. Milgrom, 2005. "Matching with Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 913-935, September.
    10. Roth, Alvin E. & Niederle, Muriel, 2003. "Relationship Between Wages and Presence of a Match in Medical Fellowships," Scholarly Articles 35059714, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    11. Roth, Alvin E, 1984. "Stability and Polarization of Interests in Job Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 47-57, January.
    12. Roth, Alvin E, 1984. "The Evolution of the Labor Market for Medical Interns and Residents: A Case Study in Game Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 991-1016, December.
    13. Kelso, Alexander S, Jr & Crawford, Vincent P, 1982. "Job Matching, Coalition Formation, and Gross Substitutes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1483-1504, November.
    14. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
    15. Alvin E. Roth, 1982. "The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(4), pages 617-628, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Alvin Roth, 2008. "Deferred acceptance algorithms: history, theory, practice, and open questions," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 36(3), pages 537-569, March.
    2. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 235-271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Alvin E. Roth, 2009. "What Have We Learned from Market Design?," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 79-112.
    4. Konishi, Hideo & Sapozhnikov, Margarita, 2008. "Decentralized matching markets with endogenous salaries," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 193-218, September.
    5. Itay Fainmesser, 2010. "Social Networks and Unraveling in Labor Markets," Working Papers 2010-15, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    6. Elliott, Matt & Nava, Francesco, 2019. "Decentralized bargaining in matching markets: efficient stationary equilibria and the core," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87219, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Alvin E. Roth, 2023. "Market Design and Maintenance," NBER Chapters, in: New Directions in Market Design, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Sabrina Jeworrek & Vanessa Mertins, 2019. "Wage delegation in the field," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 656-669, November.
    9. Christopher Avery & Christine Jolls & Richard Posner & Alvin E. Roth, 2007. "The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," NBER Working Papers 13213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    11. Schwarz, Michael & Yenmez, M. Bumin, 2011. "Median stable matching for markets with wages," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 619-637, March.
    12. Li, Sherry Xin & Dogan, Kutsal & Haruvy, Ernan, 2011. "Group identity in markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 104-115, January.
    13. Alvin E. Roth, 2010. "Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions," NBER Working Papers 16556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kohei Kawamura & József Sákovics, 2014. "Spillovers of Equal Treatment in Wage Offers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(5), pages 487-501, November.
    15. Fuhito Kojima & Parag A. Pathak, 2009. "Incentives and Stability in Large Two-Sided Matching Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 608-627, June.
    16. Fainmesser, Itay P., 2013. "Social networks and unraveling in labor markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 64-103.
    17. Michael Schwarz & M. Bumin Yenmez, 2009. "Median Stable Matching," NBER Working Papers 14689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. He Yiming & Luo Biliang & Zou Baoling, 2018. "Do Heterogeneous Agricultural Factors Affect Farmland Contractual Choice?—Evidence from China," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12, June.
    19. Fuhito Kojima, 2007. "Matching and Price Competition: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 1027-1031, June.
    20. Alvin E. Roth, 2012. "Marketplace Institutions Related to the Timing of Transactions: Reply to Priest," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 479-494.
    21. Kawamura, Kohei & Sákovics, József, 2013. "Partial Equal Treatment in Wage Offers," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-06, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets

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