Should-Read: José Azar, Ioana Marinescu, Marshall I. Steinbaum: Labor Market Concentration

Should-Read: José Azar, Ioana Marinescu, Marshall I. Steinbaum: Labor Market Concentration: “A product market is concentrated when a few firms dominate the market…

…Similarly, a labor market is concentrated when a few firms dominate hiring in the market. Using data from… http://CareerBuilder.com, we calculate labor market concentration for over 8,000 geographic-occupational labor markets in the US. Based on the DOJ-FTC horizontal merger guidelines, the average market is highly concentrated. Using a panel IV regression, we show that going from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile in concentration is associated with a 15-25% decline in posted wages, suggesting that concentration increases labor market power…

December 26, 2017

AUTHORS:

Brad DeLong
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