Wages, hires, and labor market concentration

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Year: 2021
Volume: 184
Issue: C
Pages: 506-605

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

How does employer market power affect workers? We compute the concentration of new hires by occupation and commuting zone in France using linked employer-employee data. Using instrumental variables, we find that a 10% increase in labor market concentration decreases hires by 3.2% and their hourly wage by nearly 0.5%, as hypothesized by monopsony theory. Based on a simple merger simulation, we find that a merger between the top two employers in the retail industry would be most damaging, with about 30 million euros in annual loss to the wage bill of new hires, and a 3000 decrease in annual hires.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:jeborg:v:184:y:2021:i:c:p:506-605
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25