The IGIER Research Center at Bocconi University invites applications for a 12-month Research Grant related to the “MARKINDOWN - Monopsony Power and Inequality” ERC project.
Research Project:
MARKINDOWN is a multi-year project aiming at investigating the role played by monopsony (monopoly power in the demand for labor) in widening earning inequalities. Recent studies documented the pervasiveness of monopsony power in modern labor markets. Monopsonistic employers can cut wages without losing workers to competitors, pay labor below its productivity and hire fewer workers than in a competitive labor market. The resulting equilibrium is inefficient insofar as it reduces the size of the labor market.Moreover, workers tend to be exposed to excessive work injury risk. Monopsony contributes to explain declining labor shares of income, persistently high levels of workplace accidents, and limited disemployment effects of minimum wages. Much less is known about the role of monopsony in increasing earning inequality. This project aims at filling this gap by i) contributing to a better understanding of the sources of monopsony power and ii) assessing their relevance across different socio-economic groups.
Monopsony power can be due to anticompetitive arrangements introduced often in a non-transparent way in labor contracts. Another source of monopsony power is lack of information on alternative job opportunities. Frictions in the matching of workers and vacancies may discourage risk averse workers when planning to quit the firm after wage cuts. Spatial mismatch in the allocation of jobs and quitters may increase monopsony power vis-à-vis workers having a stronger distaste for commuting. Some groups of workers may also have stronger cognitive biases when interpreting available information on outside opportunities.
The MARKINDOWN project will i) assess the incidence of anticompetitive arrangements in Europe, ii) estimate firm-level labor supply elasticities across different categories of workers, and iii) using survey and experimental methods, evaluate to what extent the heterogeneity among socio-economic groups of willingness to quit a low-paid job is related to lack of information or cognitive biases.
Job Description:
The candidate will be directly involved in different phases of the PI's research project on the topic of monopsonistic power and its implications for income inequalities and will carry out his own research activity on these topics.
The profile is that of a young researcher who is about to obtain or has obtained a doctorate in economics, particularly interested in the fields of the labor market, labour supply elasticity estimates, no-compete clauses in employment contracts, social protection, and industrial relations, with solid foundations in empirical methodologies and data analysis. Prior experience in survey design and implementation as well as in the delivery of information experiments is highly valued, although not mandatory.
If you are interested, please apply here by 19th January 2025.
To apply, visit https://jobmarket.unibocconi.eu/?id=726. (See posting for details.)