In oligopsonistic labour markets, firms have some market power, and a wedge is created between wages and marginal product. When oligopsonistic firms' production technology requires generally trained workers, firms may therefore receive part of the returns to general training and be willing to...

In this paper we conduct a theoretical analysis of the implications of a union which can exploit the existence of firm labour adjustment costs. We consider a model involving a large number of identical firms facing a single, economy-wide union. We solve (i) for the Markov perfect equilibria with...

This paper provides a model that can account for the almost uniform staggering of wage contracts in some countries as well as for the markedly nonuniform staggering in others. In the model, short and long contracts as well as long contracts concluded in different periods are strategic...

We present a model of neighborhood effects in wage payment delays. Positive feedback arises because each employer?s arrears affect the late payment costs faced by other firms in the same local labor market, resulting in a strategic complementarity in the practice. The model is estimated on panel...

We investigate the effects of pay comparison information (i.e. information about what co-workers earn) and effort comparison information (information about how co-workers perform) in experimental firms composed of one employer and two employees. Exposure to pay comparison information in...

In this paper, we study gains and losses that accrue to natives because of immigration. The gain on the aggregated level is called the ?immigration surplus?, which can be seen as analogous to a consumer surplus. We derive changes in the earnings of native owners of production factors by...

Smoother labor incomes alleviate credit constraints by reducing workers' desire to borrow, and prospects of upward income mobility have smaller beneficial effects for currently poor workers when borrowing constraints are binding. These simple theoretical insights are consistent with the...

Because their departures are difficultly observed, little is known about the performance of immigrants who leave a region and move to another. This paper shows conditions under which the (conditional) outmigration probability, work probability and the expected earnings of outmigrants are...

Work of low-skilled migrant workers from developing countries in developed economies is a growing phenomenon and a key political and economic issue. An extensive literature has found (for the most part) that these workers come from the lower part of the skill distribution. This paper revisits...