What happens if an employer cuts wages by one cent? Much of labor economics is built on the assumption that all the workers will quit immediately. Here, Alan Manning mounts a systematic challenge to the standard model of perfect competition. Monopsony in Motion stands apart by analyzing labor...

Biographical note: ManningAlan: Alan Manning is Professor of Economics and Director of the Labour Markets Programme in the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He has published numerous papers on labor economics.

The authors examine long-term wage contracts between a risk-neutral firm and a risk-averse worker when both can costlessly renege and bu y or sell labor at a random spot market wage. A self-enforcing contract is one in which neither party ever has an incentive to renege. In th e optimum...