DOES COLLECTIVE WAGE BARGAINING RESTORE EFFICIENCY IN A SEARCH MODEL WITH LARGE FIRMS?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bauer, Christian; Lingens, Joerg
• 署名单位: University of Munich; University of Munster
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/ecoj.12073
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1066-1085
• 关键词: matching model; labor-market; unemployment; demand

摘要

Existing search and bargaining models show that firms hire an inefficiently large number of workers. We ask whether decentralised collective wage bargaining may result in a second-best allocation. Collective bargaining restores efficiency when the bargained wage is independent of employment; conditions that we characterise. Firms then behave as if collective bargaining was over both wages and employment, thus linking the large-firm search and bargaining environment to the efficient bargaining model (McDonald and Solow, 1981). Under more realistic conditions, workers can bargain for a share of output, so that the wage is then a function of employment. In equilibrium, firms are too large and firm entry is inefficient.