Search Results
Working Paper
Labor Market Power
To measure labor market power in the US economy, we develop a tractable quantitative, general equilibrium, oligopsony model of the labor market. We estimate key model parameters by matching the firm-level relationship between labor market share and employment size and wage responses to state corporate tax changes. The model quantitatively replicates quasi-experimental evidence on (i) imperfect productivity-wage pass-through, (ii) strategic behavior of dominant employers, and (iii) the local labor market impact of mergers. We then measure welfare losses relative to the efficient allocation. ...
Working Paper
Minimum Wages, Efficiency and Welfare
It has long been argued that a minimum wage could alleviate efficiency losses from monopsony power. In a general equilibrium framework that quantitatively replicates results from recent empirical studies, we find higher minimum wages can improve welfare, but most welfare gains stem from redistribution rather than efficiency. Our model features oligopsonistic labor markets with heterogeneous workers and firms and yields analytical expressions that characterize the mechanisms by which minimum wages can improve efficiency, and how these deteriorate at higher minimum wages. We provide a method to ...
Working Paper
Online Job Posts Contain Very Little Wage Information
We characterize the little wage information contained in online job posts. Wage information is rare: only 14% of posts contain any information. Of these, wage ranges are more common than point wages, and are wide on average, spanning 28% of the midpoint (e.g. $32,000-$42,000/yr). Posted wages are highly selected in low income occupations: 40% higher than wages of employed workers. High wage firms are more opaque, with more and wider ranges. We find zero correlation between wage information and local labor market tightness. We provide an example of bias in econometric inference that worsens as ...
Report
Quantifying Market Power and Business Dynamism in the Macroeconomy
What are the causes and consequences of changes in market power and business dynamism in the U.S. economy? We answer these questions in a general equilibrium economy with firm heterogeneity, oligopolistic output markets and endogenous entry. We study three potential causes: technology via (i) the firm productivity distribution and (ii) the composition of overhead versus variable costs, and competition via (iii) the number of potential competitors. We show that in conjunction with time-series on markups and costs, data on business dynamism disentangles these channels. We then estimate that all ...
Report
Labor Market Power with Worker and Firm Heterogeneity
How do firms set wages? How should governments set income taxes? If labor supply is inelastic to wages, firms can pay workers less than their marginal products, and governments can increase taxes without eroding the base. However, the structure of labor supply elasticities in the economy is complex. Recent empirics document variation across workers, firms, and margins (which firm to work at versus how many hours to work). To account for this rich structure of labor supply elasticities we extend the neoclassical model to include a discrete choice over which firm to work at, production ...
Report
Online Job Posts Contain Very Little Wage Information
We describe the small amount of wage information in online job posts in the U.S. and how the information that is available is systematically correlated with occupation wages, firms wages, and local labor market tightness. Only 14% of posts contain any information, and 75% of all posts are accounted for by firms with pay information in less than 5% of their posts. More than half of posts with pay information list a range that, on average, is wide, spanning 28% of the midpoint (e.g. $21-28/hr or $32,000-$42,000/yr). The lack of information is not ‘missing at random’. First, postings for ...
Report
Unbundling Labor
Why is there so much wage inequality within occupations? Why has the overall level of within-occupation wage inequality risen? Why is the rise concentrated in cognitive-intensive occupations, while inequality has fallen in manual-intensive ones? To answer these questions we develop a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous workers who supply multiple skills jointly, as an indivisible bundle. This bundling friction allows a given skill to be priced differently in different occupations. We find in US data that differences in skill prices, not worker composition, explain why ...
Report
Market Structure and Monetary Non-neutrality
I propose an equilibrium menu cost model with a continuum of sectors, each consisting of strategically engaged firms. Compared to a model with monopolistically competitive sectors that is calibrated to the same data on good-level price flexibility, the dynamic duopoly model features a smaller inflation response to monetary shocks and output responses that are more than twice as large. The model also implies (i) four times larger welfare losses from nominal rigidities, (ii) smaller menu costs and idiosyncratic shocks are needed to match the data, (iii) a U-shaped relationship between market ...
Report
Aggregate Recruiting Intensity
We develop an equilibrium model of firm dynamics with random search in the labor market where hiring firms exert recruiting effort by spending resources to fill vacancies faster. Consistent with microevidence, fast-growing firms invest more in recruiting activities and achieve higher job-filling rates. These hiring decisions of firms aggregate into an index of economy-wide recruiting intensity. We study how aggregate shocks transmit to recruiting intensity, and whether this channel can account for the dynamics of aggregate matching efficiency during the Great Recession. Productivity and ...
Report
An SEIR Infectious Disease Model with Testing and Conditional Quarantine
We extend the baseline Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) infectious disease epidemiology model to understand the role of testing and case-dependent quarantine. Our model nests the SEIR model. During a period of asymptomatic infection, testing can reveal infection that otherwise would only be revealed later when symptoms develop. Along with those displaying symptoms, such individuals are deemed known positive cases. Quarantine policy is case-dependent in that it can depend on whether a case is unknown, known positive, known negative, or recovered. Testing therefore makes possible ...