This paper models the firm as a community à la Akerlof [Akerlof, G.A., 1980. A theory of social custom, of which unemployment may be one consequence. Quarterly Journal of Economics 94, 749-775] to account for asymmetric behavior and, in particular, downward rigidity of wages. It is shown that,...

This paper uses Shapiro and Stiglitz’s (1984) efficiency wage model embodying the firm’s choice of location to show the existence of an optimal intermediate location without assuming a transport rate that increases with distance. Based on the viewpoint of Shapiro and Stiglitz, we demonstrate...

This paper examines the unemployment and wage effects of the tax shift from an income tax to a consumption tax in a shirking-type efficiency wage model. It is found that the results of the ex ante individual income-neutral and aggregate revenue-neutral proposals in this paper's efficiency wage...

This paper proposes a labor-adverse selection model where labor quality within an individual firm negatively depends upon the average working hours in the market. Under this setting, labor quality is a "pure public good" by nature, and the free market equilibrium will result in inefficient...

This paper proposes an explanation of the backward-bending labor supply curve that is not based on the premise that the income effect dominates the substitution effect. Unlike the classical labor supply theory that treats working hours and work effort as being synonymous, this paper treats them...

This note extends the Chen and Chiang (1992) analysis to examine the possibility that trades may be denominated in the currency of the third country. Two main conclusions are found in this note. First, the quantities of trade and employment are still invariant to invoicing strategies chosen....

The employment relationship is to a large extent characterized by incomplete contracts, in which workers have a considerable degree of discretion over the choice of their work effort. This discretion at work kicks in the potential importance of "gift exchange" or reciprocity between workers and...