This paper studies the stability of centralized wage-setting systems in light of the on-going decentralization of labor relations in much of the Western world. It takes the decline of peak level bargaining in Sweden, the traditional archetype of centralized collective bargaining, as its key case...

We analyze a rational-expectations model of information acquisition and price formation in an intermediate- good market: prices and net supply are non-negative, there are no noise traders, and the intermediate good has multiple potential uses. Several of our results differ from the classic...

We develop a model in which a worker's skills determine the worker's current wage and sector. Both the market and the worker are initially uncertain about some of the worker's skills. Endogenous wage changes and sector mobility occur as labor-market participants learn about these unobserved...

We analyze the role of implicit contracts' (that is, informal agreements supported by" reputation rather than law) both within firms, for example in employment relationships between them, for example as hand-in-glove supplier relationships. We find that the optimal" organizational form is...

This paper studies career concerns -- concerns about the effects of current performance on future compensation -- and describes how optimal incentive contracts are affected when career concerns are taken into account. Career concerns arise frequently: they occur whenever the market uses a...

We attempt to explain employment practices in internal labor markets using models that combine job assignment, on-the-job human-capital acquisition, and learning. We show that a framework that integrates these familiar ideas captures a number of recent empirical findings concerning wage and...