Journal
JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS
Volume 139, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2023.103614
Keywords
Oligopsony; Wages; Regional labour markets; Worker mobility; Portugal
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study measures employer power and its wage implications using comprehensive matched employer-employee data. The findings suggest that employer concentration negatively affects wages, but only a small percentage of workers are exposed to this concentration.
The subdued wage growth observed in many countries has spurred interest in monopsony views of regional labour markets. This study measures the extent and robustness of employer power and its wage implica-tions exploiting comprehensive matched employer-employee data. We find average (employment-weighted) Herfindhal indices of 800 to 1,100, stable over the 1986-2019 period covered, and that typically less than 8% of workers are exposed to concentration levels thought to raise market power concerns. When controlling for both worker and firm heterogeneity and instrumenting for concentration, we find that wages are negatively affected by employer concentration, with elasticities of around -1.4%. We also find that several methodological choices can change significantly both the measurement of concentration and its wage effects.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available