IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20000028.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Catching Hipo's: Screening, Wages and Unemployment

Author

Listed:
  • Maarten C.W. Janssen

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

In this paper, I study the wage a firm sets to attract high abilityworkers (hipo's) in situationsof unemployment. I show that the higher unemployment, the larger afirm's incentives to sorthigh and low ability workers. Moreover, workers will signal their(high) ability in situationsof (high) unemployment only if a job offers a high enough wage. Themain result, therefore,says that a firm sets higher wages, the higher unemployment. As themodel is applicable tothe upper segment of the labour market, the result is in line withthe empirical fact thatincome inequality increases when more people are unemployed.

Suggested Citation

  • Maarten C.W. Janssen, 2000. "Catching Hipo's: Screening, Wages and Unemployment," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 00-028/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20000028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/00028.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lazear, Edward P & Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "Rank-Order Tournaments as Optimum Labor Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 841-864, October.
    2. Gibbons, Robert & Katz, Lawrence F, 1991. "Layoffs and Lemons," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 351-380, October.
    3. Georg Noldeke & Eric van Damme, 1990. "Signalling in a Dynamic Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(1), pages 1-23.
    4. Andrew Weiss, 1995. "Human Capital vs. Signalling Explanations of Wages," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 133-154, Fall.
    5. Blinder, Alan S & Esaki, Howard Y, 1978. "Macroeconomic Activity and Income Distribution in the Postwar United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(4), pages 604-609, November.
    6. In-Koo Cho & David M. Kreps, 1987. "Signaling Games and Stable Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 179-221.
    7. Michael Waldman, 1984. "Job Assignments, Signalling, and Efficiency," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(2), pages 255-267, Summer.
    8. Edward M. Gramlich, 1974. "The Distributional Effects of Higher Unemployment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 5(2), pages 293-342.
    9. Michael Spence, 1973. "Job Market Signaling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(3), pages 355-374.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dato, Simon & Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias & Müller, Daniel, 2016. "Asymmetric employer information, promotions, and the wage policy of firms," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 273-300.
    2. Jed DeVaro & Michael Waldman, 2012. "The Signaling Role of Promotions: Further Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 91-147.
    3. Jorge M. Streb, 2006. "Job market signals and signs," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 326, Universidad del CEMA.
    4. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    5. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.
    6. Waldman, Michael, 1996. "Asymmetric learning and the wage/productivity relationship," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 419-429, December.
    7. Luís Santos-Pinto, 2012. "Labor Market Signaling and Self-Confidence: Wage Compression and the Gender Pay Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 873-914.
    8. Kaniel, Ron & Orlov, Dmitry, 2020. "Intermediated Asymmetric Information, Compensation, and Career Prospects," CEPR Discussion Papers 14586, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Stefano Ficco, 2004. "Information Overload in Monopsony Markets," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-082/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Xin Jin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Not Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 0314, University of South Florida, Department of Economics.
    11. Robert Gibbons & Michael Waldman, 2006. "Enriching a Theory of Wage and Promotion Dynamics inside Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 59-108, January.
    12. Edward P. Lazear & Paul Oyer, 2012. "Personnel Economics [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    13. Waldman, Michael, 2016. "The dual avenues of labor market signaling," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 120-134.
    14. Jin, Xin, 2014. "The Signaling Role of Note Being Promoted: Theory and Evidence," MPRA Paper 58484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Massimo Giannini, 1999. "Education and Job market signalling: How robust is the nexus?," Working Papers in Public Economics 35, Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Roma.
    16. Michael Waldman, 1990. "A Signalling Explanation for Seniority Based Promotions and Other Labor Market Puzzles," UCLA Economics Working Papers 599, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Domadenik, Polona & Far?nik, Daša & Pastore, Francesco, 2013. "Horizontal Mismatch in the Labour Market of Graduates: The Role of Signalling," IZA Discussion Papers 7527, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Theodore Koutmeridis, 2013. "The Market for "Rough Diamonds": Information, Finance and Wage Inequality," CDMA Working Paper Series 201307, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 14 Oct 2013.
    19. Eguchi, Kyota, 2004. "Trainers' dilemma of choosing between training and promotion," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 765-783, December.
    20. Bergh, Andreas & Fink, Günther, 2009. "Higher education, elite institutions and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 376-384, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monopsony Power; Labor Market; Screening;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets

    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:tin:wpaper:20000028. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.html .

    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.