Labor Market Concentration and Stayers' Wages: Evidence from France

In concentrated labor markets, where workers have fewer employers to choose from, employers may exploit their monopsony power by contributing less to workers’ health benefits. This study examined if labor market concentration was associated with higher worker contributions to health plan premiums. We combined publicly available data from the Census to calculate labor market concentration and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Insurance/Employer Component to determine premium contributions from 2010 to 2016 for metropolitan areas. After controlling for year fixed-effects and market characteristics, we found that higher labor market concentration was associated with higher worker contributions to health plan premiums, lower take-home income, and no change in employer contributions to premiums, consistent with the hypothesis that greater labor market concentration is associated with less generous health benefits. When evaluating the effects of mergers and acquisitions on labor markets, regulatory agencies should critically assess worker contributions to health insurance premiums.

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Firm Size and Employment during the Pandemic

Socius Sociological Research for a Dynamic World ◽

10.1177/2378023121992601 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 237802312199260

Author(s):

Ken-Hou Lin ◽

Carolina Aragão ◽

Guillermo Dominguez

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Labor Market ◽

Firm Size ◽

The United States ◽

Market Concentration ◽

Job Security ◽

Wage Premium ◽

Small Enterprises ◽

Policy Responses ◽

Industrial Context

Previous studies have established that firm size is associated with a wage premium, but the wage premium has declined in recent decades. The authors examine the risk for unemployment by firm size during the initial outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 in the United States. Using both yearly and state-month variation, the authors find greater excess unemployment among workers in small enterprises than among those in larger firms. The gaps cannot be entirely attributed to the sorting of workers or to industrial context. The firm size advantage is most pronounced in sectors with high remotability but reverses in the sectors most affected by the pandemic. Overall, these findings suggest that firm size is linked to greater job security and that the pandemic may have accelerated prior trends regarding product and labor market concentration. They also point out that the initial policy responses did not provide sufficient protection for workers in small and medium-sized businesses.

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Minimum Wage Employment Effects and Labor Market Concentration

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3416016 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

José Azar ◽

Emiliano Huet-Vaughn ◽

Ioana Elena Marinescu ◽

Bledi Taska ◽

Till Von Wachter

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Minimum Wage ◽

Market Concentration ◽

Employment Effects ◽

Wage Employment

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Labor Market Concentration, Earnings, and Inequality

The Journal of Human Resources ◽

10.3368/jhr.monopsony.0219-10025r1 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 0219-10025R1

Author(s):

Kevin Rinz

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Market Concentration

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Market Concentration and Natural Resource Development in Rural America

10.31235/osf.io/mbq9s ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tom Mueller ◽

Jesse Shircliff ◽

Marshall Steinbaum

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Natural Resource ◽

Outdoor Recreation ◽

Resource Development ◽

Market Concentration ◽

Moderating Effect ◽

Rural America ◽

Economic Prosperity ◽

Natural Resource Development ◽

Oil Gas

Natural resource development, both extractive (oil, gas, mining, timber) and non-extractive (tourism, real estate, outdoor recreation), has been found to negatively impact economic prosperity in rural America. One mechanism recently proposed for why this occurs is high levels of labor market concentration, or oligopsony. Oligopsony occurs when there are few employers within a labor market and can lead to suppressed wages and a power imbalance between employers and workers. In this paper, we test the moderating effect of labor market concentration on the relationship between natural resource development and per capita income and poverty in rural America from 2010 to 2016. By comparing results between extractive and non-extractive development, as well as manufacturing, we show that labor market power attenuates the beneficial relationship observed at low levels of specialization in natural resources—particularly for extractive forms of development. Further, by finding no significant relationship between manufacturing specialization and economic prosperity, nor any moderating effect of labor market concentration in the case of manufacturing, we demonstrate that natural resource development and labor market concentration have a unique relationship with rural American economic prosperity.

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The Limits of Antitrust

10.1093/oso/9780197507629.003.0008 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 117-121

Author(s):

Eric A. Posner

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Labor Supply ◽

Market Power ◽

Significant Degree ◽

Market Concentration ◽

Search Costs ◽

Antitrust Law ◽

Barriers To Entry

While antitrust law is an important response to labor market monopsony, it cannot solve all the problems of labor monopsony. A significant degree of labor market power is “frictional,” that is, without artificial barriers to entry or excessive concentration of employment. The two major sources of such friction are search costs and job differentiation. Search costs refer to the costs a worker must incur in order to find a job. Job differentiation refers to the variations in amenities and other conditions that distinguish otherwise similar-seeming jobs. A simple mathematical exercise, drawing on estimates of concentration and aggregate and firm-specific labor supply elasticities, shows that even if labor market concentration were eliminated, workers would be paid less than 60% of the competitive wage.

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