Monopsony and Employer Misoptimization Explain Why Wages Bunch at Round Numbers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dube, Arindrajit; Manning, Alan; Naidu, Suresh
• 署名单位: University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; National Bureau of Economic Research; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20200678
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 2689-2721
• 关键词: Optimization frictions; PRICE ENDINGS; labor-markets; COMPETITION; elasticities; FIRMS

摘要

We show that administrative hourly wage data exhibit considerable bunching at round numbers. We run two experiments randomizing wages around $0.10 and $1.00 to experimentally measure left-digit bias for identical tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk; we fail to find any evidence of discontinuity in the labor supply function at round numbers despite estimating a considerable degree of monopsony. We replicate these results in administrative worker-firm hourly wage data from Oregon. We can rule out inattention estimates found in the behavioral product market literature. We provide evidence that firms misoptimize wage setting. More monopsony requires less employer misoptimization to explain bunching. (JEL D22, J22, J31, J42)