Competing with asking prices

In many markets, sellers advertise their good with an asking price. This is a price at which the seller will take his good off the market and trade immediately, though it is understood that a buyer can submit an offer below the asking price and that this offer may be accepted if the seller receives no better offers. Despite their prevalence in a variety of real world markets, asking prices have received little attention in the academic literature. We construct an environment with a few simple, realistic ingredients and demonstrate that using an asking price is optimal: it is the pricing mechanism that maximizes sellers’ revenues and it implements the efficient outcome in equilibrium. We provide a complete characterization of this equilibrium and use it to explore the positive implications of this pricing mechanism for transaction prices and allocations.Ludo Visschers gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Juan de la Cierva Grant; project grant ECO2010- 20614 (Dirección general de investigación científica y técnica), and the Bank of Spain’s Programa de Investigación de Excelencia

Minimum wages, wage dispersion and unemployment : a review on new search models

"This paper analyses theoretical effects of minimum wages on employment and the wage distribution under a frictional setting. I review new developments in search theory and discuss the influence of minimum wages on wages and employment under each setting. Thereby, a major theoretical focus of the paper is the integration of heterogeneity on both sides of the market in equilibrium search models. In the homogeneous case minimum wages do not affect employment, while in the heterogenous case theoretical results are mixed. There is no unique connection between unemployment and minimum wages, and the effect can be positive, zero or negative. However, the most advanced models, integrating heterogeneity on both sides of the market, seem to support the hypothesis that an increase in the minimum wage generally leads to an increase in unemployment as well." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Lohnpolitik, Mindestlohn, Beschäftigungseffekte, Einkommenseffekte, Lohndifferenzierung, Arbeitslosigkeit, Arbeitsplatzabbau, Lohntheorie, labour turnover, friktionelle Arbeitslosigkeit, Sucharbeitslosigkeit, Lohnstruktur, Arbeitsplatzsuchtheorie

State Regulations, Job Search and Wage Bargaining: A Study in the Economics of the Informal Sector

This paper analyses the emergence of the informal economy in the environment characterised by non-competitive labour markets with wage bargaining. We develop a simple extension of the standard search model à la Pissarides (2000) with formal and informal sectors to show how a government’s auditing of informal firms and barriers to firms’ entry erected in the formal sector by corrupt bureaucracy can make for stable coexistence of formal and informal jobs in the long term. In equilibrium, wage differentials for homogeneous and risk-neutral workers emerge because different types of jobs have different lifetimes and/or have different creation costs. The former are explained by the auditing activities of the government that in the simple set-up destroy informal matches, while keeping formal jobs intact; the latter are due to varying capital costs, or costs associated with red tape and bureaucratic extortion (bribing). Search frictions introduce rent sharing between firms and workers in both formal and informal sectors. This has an important implication for policy making. In particular, we show that if ceteris paribus a firms’ bargaining position vis-à-vis workers is stronger in the formal rather than in the informal sector, governments can afford to appropriate a larger part of a productive match surplus (e.g. by levying higher taxes), without endangering the qualitative outcome in the long run. Rent sharing also implies that both formal and informal sector employees may receive wages above marginal product. We investigate efficiency properties of an equilibrium with formal and informal jobs and discuss the role of the government in creating and eliminating such inefficiencies partially arising from a version of the hold-up problem (Grout, 1984). Some lessons are drawn for normative analyses of policies aimed at reduction of informality in set-ups with non-competitive labour markets. In particular, the conditions are given under which a reduction in size of the informal sector is likely to be detrimental for economic welfare.informal economy, regulations, wage bargaining, labour markets, search models

Wages and Informality in Developing Countries

We develop an equilibrium wage-posting model with heterogeneous firms that decide to locate in the formal or the informal sector and workers who search randomly on and off the job. We estimate the model on Brazilian labor force survey data. In equilibrium, firms of equal productivity locate in different sectors, a fact observed in the data. Wages are characterized by compensating differentials. We show that tightening enforcement does not increase unemployment and increases wages, total output, and welfare by enabling better allocation of workers to higher productivity jobs and improving competition in the formal labor market

Asset Pricing Frictions in Fragmented Markets

We study the consequences of trading fragmentation and speed on liquidity and asset prices. Exchanges invest in speed-enhancing technologies and price trading services to attract investors. Investors trade due to idiosyncratic preference shocks. We show how the resulting market organization affects asset liquidity and the composition of participating investors. In a consolidated market, speed investments raise liquidity and prices. When markets fragment, liquidity and asset prices can move in opposite directions. We also show how mechanisms that protect execution prices, such as the SEC’s trade-through rule, can decrease price levels and trading volume relative to unregulated markets. Our results suggest that recent regulatory reforms in secondary markets may have unintended negative consequences for public corporations

Multiple applications, competing mechanisms, and market power

We consider a labor market with search frictions in which workers make multiple applications and firms can post and commit to general mechanisms that may be conditioned both on the number of applications received and on the number of offers received by the firm's candidate. When the contract space includes application fees, there exists a continuum of symmetric equilibria of which only one is efficient, and it has a posted wage equal to match output. In the inefficient equilibria, the wage is below match output, and the value of a worker's application depends on whether he or she receives another offer. This allows individual firms to free ride on one another and gives firms market power. When we endogenize the number of applications and allow for general mechanisms, only the efficient equilibrium survives. By allowing for general mechanisms, we are able to examine the sources of inefficiency in the multiple applications literature

Inefficiencies in Digital Advertising Markets

Digital advertising markets are growing and attracting increased scrutiny. This article explores four market inefficiencies that remain poorly understood: ad effect measurement, frictions between and within advertising channel members, ad blocking, and ad fraud. Although these topics are not unique to digital advertising, each manifests in unique ways in markets for digital ads. The authors identify relevant findings in the academic literature, recent developments in practice, and promising topics for future research

Wages and Informality in Developing Countries

We develop an equilibrium wage-posting model with heterogeneous firms that decide to locate in the formal or the informal sector and workers who search randomly on and off the job. We estimate the model on Brazilian labor force survey data. In equilibrium, firms of equal productivity locate in different sectors, a fact observed in the data. Wages are characterized by compensating differentials. We show that tightening enforcement does not increase unemployment and increases wages, total output, and welfare by enabling better allocation of workers to higher productivity jobs and improving competition in the formal labor market

Micro-Foundations of Urban Agglomeration Economies

This handbook chapter studies the theoretical micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. We distinguish three types of micro-foundations, based on sharing, matching, and learning mechanisms. For each of these three categories, we develop one or more core models in detail and discuss the literature in relation to those models. This allows us to give a precise characterisation of some of the main theoretical underpinnings of urban agglomeration economies, to discuss modelling issues that arise when working with these tools, and to compare different sources of agglomeration economies in terms of the aggregate urban outcomes they produce as well as in terms of their normative implications.