Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:27:00.514Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

DUAL LABOR MARKET AND ENDOGENOUS FLUCTUATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2005

FRANCESCO DE PALMA
Affiliation:
Louis Pasteur University
THOMAS SEEGMULLER
Affiliation:
CNRS and EUREQua

Abstract

We study the influence of wage differential on the emergence of endogenous fluctuations. In this way, we introduce a dual labor market, based on the Shapiro–Stiglitz efficiency wage theory in an overlapping generations model. We show that wage inequality is a source of endogenous fluctuations. Indeed, a sufficiently strong wage differential leads to the occurrence of cycles of period 2 and local indeterminacy. Moreover, in contrast to several existing contributions, these results depend neither on increasing returns to scale nor on the degree of capital–labor substitution.

Type
ARTICLES
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abowd J., F. Kramarz and D. Margolis 1994 High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms. Working paper 4917, National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Agenor P.-R. and J. Aizenman 1997 Technological change, relative wages, and employment. European Economic Review 41, 188205.Google Scholar
Akerlof G. and J. Yellen 1986 Efficiency Wage Models on the Labor Market. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Albrecht J. and S. Vroman 1992 Dual labor markets, efficiency wages and search. Journal of Labor Economics 10, 438461.Google Scholar
Aloi M., H. Dixon and T. Lloyd-Braga 2000 Endogenous fluctuations in an open economy with increasing returns to scale. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 24, 97125.Google Scholar
Benhabib J. and R. Farmer 1994 Indeterminacy and increasing returns. Journal of Economic Theory 63, 1941.Google Scholar
Benhabib J. and R. Farmer 1996 Indeterminacy and sector-specific externalities. Journal of Monetary Economics 37, 421443.Google Scholar
Benhabib J. and R. Farmer, 1999 Indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics. In J. Taylor and M. Woodford (eds.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, vol. 1, pp. 387448, Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Benhabib J. and K. Nishimura 1985 Competitive equilibrium cycles. Journal of Economic Theory 35, 284306.Google Scholar
Benhabib J. and K. Nishimura 1998 Indeterminacy and sunspots with constant returns. Journal of Economic Theory 81, 5896.Google Scholar
Boldrin M. 1989 Paths of optimal accumulation in two-sector models. In W.A. Barnett, J. Geweke and K. Shell (eds.), Economic Complexity: Chaos, Sunspots, Bubbles and Nonlinearity, Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bulow J. and L. Summers 1986 A theory of dual labor market with applications to industrial policy, discrimination, and Keynesian unemployment. Journal of Labor Economics 4, 376425.Google Scholar
Cazzavillan G. 2001 Indeterminacy and endogenous fluctuations with arbitrarily small externalities. Journal of Economic Theory 101, 133157.Google Scholar
Cazzavillan G., T. Lloyd-Braga and P. Pintus 1998 Multiple steady states and endogenous fluctuations with increasing returns to scale in production. Journal of Economic Theory 80, 60107.Google Scholar
Coimbra R. 1999 Efficiency Wages, Increasing Returns and Endogenous Fluctuations. Discussion paper 99/06, University of York.Google Scholar
Coimbra R., T. Lloyd-Braga and L. Modesto 2005 Endogenous Fluctuations in Unionized Economics with Productive Externalitics. Economic Theory 26, 629649.Google Scholar
Dickens W.T. and L.F. Katz 1987 Industry wage differences and industry characteristics. In K. Lang and J.S. Leonard (eds.), Unemployment and the Structure of Labor Markets. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Doeringer P. and M. Piore 1971 International Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis. Lexington, MA: Heath.
Flug K. and Z. Hercowitz 2000 Equipment investment and the relative demand for skilled labor: International evidence. Review of Economic Dynamics 3, 461485.Google Scholar
Galor O. 1992 A two-sector overlapping-generations model: a global characterization of the dynamical system. Econometrica 60, 13511386.Google Scholar
Gibbons R. and L.F. Katz 1992 Does unmesured ability explain inter-industry wages differentials? Review of Economic Studies 59, 515539.Google Scholar
Grandmont J. 1985 On endogenous competitive business cycles. Econometrica 53, 9951045.Google Scholar
Grandmont J., P. Pintus and R. de Vilder 1998 Capital-labor substitution and competitive nonlinear endogenous business cycles. Journal of Economic Theory 80, 1459.Google Scholar
Guesnerie R. and M. Woodford 1992 Endogenous fluctuations. In J.-J. Laffont (ed.), Advances in Economic Theory, vol. 2, pp. 289412, Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harrison S. and M. Weder 2002 Tracing externalities as sources of indeterminacy. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 26, 851867.Google Scholar
Jacobsen H. 2000 Endogenous, imperfectly competitive business cycles. European Economic Review 44, 305336.Google Scholar
Jones S. 1987a Minimum wage legislation in a dual labor market. European Economic Review 31, 12291245.Google Scholar
Jones S. 1987b Screening unemployment in a dual labor market. Economic Letters 25, 191195.Google Scholar
Katz L. and L. Summers 1989 Industry rents: evidence and implications. In Martin N. Baily and Clifford Winston (eds.), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity; Microeconomics, pp. 209275. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Kimball M. 1994 Labor market dynamics when unemployment is a worker discipline device. American Economic Review 84, 10451059.Google Scholar
Koebel B., M. Falk and F. Laisney 2003 Imposing and testing curvature conditions on Box-Cox cost function. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 21, 319335.Google Scholar
Krueger A.B. and L.H. Summers 1987 Reflections of inter-industry wages structure. In K. Lang and J.S. Leonard (eds.), Unemployment and the Structure of Labor Markets. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Lloyd-Braga T. 1995 Increasing Returns to Scale and Endogenous Fluctuations. Working paper 65/95, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.Google Scholar
Lloyd-Braga T. and L. Modesto 2004 Indeterminacy in a Finance Constrained Unionized Economy. CEPR, DP 4679. (http://www.ocpr.org/puds/dps/DP7649.osp.
Rebitzer J. and L. Taylor 1991 A model of dual labor market when product demand is uncertain. Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, 13731383.Google Scholar
Reichlin P. 1986 Equilibrium cycles in an overlapping generations economy with production. Journal of Economic Theory 40, 89102.Google Scholar
Saint-Paul G. 1991 A model of the natural rate of unemployment. Economics Letters 36, 219222.Google Scholar
Saint-Paul G. 1996 Dual Labor Market: A Macroeconomic Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shapiro C. and J. Stiglitz 1984 Equilibrium unemployment as a worker discipline device. American Economic Review 73, 433445.Google Scholar
Teulings C. 1993 Experience in a Shirking Model with Heterogeneous Workers. Discussion paper, Tinbergen Institute.Google Scholar
Weiss A. 1991 Efficiency Wages Models of Unemployment, Layoffs, and Wage Dispersion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Woodford M. 1986 Stationary sunspot equilibria in a finance constrained economy. Journal of Economic Theory 40, 128137.Google Scholar
Yellen J.L. 1984 Efficiency wage models of unemployment. American Economic Review Proceedings 74, 200205.Google Scholar