Wage Posting or Wage Bargaining? A Test Using Dual Jobholders

This paper examines the behavior of dual jobholders to test a simple model of wage bargaining and wage posting. We estimate the sensitivity of wages and separation rates to wage shocks in a worker’s secondary job to assess the degree of bargaining versus wage posting in the labor market. We interpret the evidence within a model where workers facing hours constraints in their primary job may take a second, flexible-hours job for additional income. When a secondary job offers a sufficiently high wage, a worker either bargains with the primary employer for a wage increase or separates. The model provides a number of predictions that we test using matched employer-employee administrative data from Washington State. In the aggregate, wage bargaining appears to be a limited determinant of wage setting. The estimated wage response to improved outside options, which we interpret as bargaining, is precisely estimated, but qualitatively small. Wage posting appears to be more important than bargaining for wage determination overall, and especially in lower parts of the wage distribution. Observed wage bargaining takes place mainly among workers in the highest wage quartile. For this group, improved outside options translate to higher wages, but not higher separation rates. In contrast, for workers in the lowest wage quartile, wage increases in the secondary job lead to higher separation rates but no significant wage increase in the primary job, consistent with wage posting. We also find evidence in support of the hours-constraint model for dual jobholding. In particular, work hours in the primary job do not respond to wages in the secondary job, but hours and separations in the secondary job are sensitive to wages in the primary job due to income effects

The N=1 triplet vertex operator superalgebras

We introduce a new family of C_2-cofinite N=1 vertex operator superalgebras SW(m), $m \geq 1$, which are natural super analogs of the triplet vertex algebra family W(p), $p \geq 2$, important in logarithmic conformal field theory. We classify irreducible SW(m)-modules and discuss logarithmic modules. We also compute bosonic and fermionic formulas of irreducible SW(m) characters. Finally, we contemplate possible connections between the category of SW(m)-modules and the category of modules for the quantum group U^{small}_q(sl_2), q=e^{\frac{2 \pi i}{2m+1}}, by focusing primarily on properties of characters and the Zhu's algebra A(SW(m)). This paper is a continuation of arXiv:0707.1857.Comment: 53 pages; v2: references added; v3: a few changes; v4: final version, to appear in CM

Factorizable ribbon quantum groups in logarithmic conformal field theories

We review the properties of quantum groups occurring as Kazhdan--Lusztig dual to logarithmic conformal field theory models. These quantum groups at even roots of unity are not quasitriangular but are factorizable and have a ribbon structure; the modular group representation on their center coincides with the representation on generalized characters of the chiral algebra in logarithmic conformal field models.Comment: 27pp., amsart++, xy. v2: references added, some other minor addition