on the power of labor to extract rents and on the status quo level of firing costs. In particular, we show that when … of relatively large rents. Moreover, we demonstrate that when the status quo level of firing costs is relatively high … rigid high-rents economies, because “good times” cut down the support for flexibility among the least productive employed …

rents. Those rents can involve higher wages, monetary and non-monetary fringe benefits (e.g. pensions and staffing), and …/or bribes. We propose a direct measure to capture the total of these rents: the difference in reported subjective wellbeing … extent of rents in the public bureaucracy. The extent of rents is determined by differences in institutional constraints and …