Alternative Models of Wage Dispersion

We analyze labor market models where the law of one price does not hold-that is, models with equilibrium wage dispersion. We begin by assuming workers are ex ante heterogeneous, and highlight a flaw with this approach: if search is costly, the market shuts down. We then assume workers are homogeneou...

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Bibliographic Details
Corporate Author: International Monetary Fund
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2005
Series:IMF Working Papers
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:We analyze labor market models where the law of one price does not hold-that is, models with equilibrium wage dispersion. We begin by assuming workers are ex ante heterogeneous, and highlight a flaw with this approach: if search is costly, the market shuts down. We then assume workers are homogeneous, but matches are ex post heterogeneous. This model is robust to search costs, and it delivers equilibrium wage dispersion. However, we prove the law of two prices holds: generically, we cannot get more than two wages. We explore several other models, including one combining ex ante and ex post heterogeneity, which is robust and can deliver more than two-point wage distributions
Physical Description:25 pages
ISBN:9781451860832