Efficiency wage theory predicts that firms can induce worker effort by the carrot of high wages and/or the stick of monitoring worker performance. Another option available to firms is to tilt the remuneration package over time such that the lure of high future earnings acts as a deterrent to...

1. The problem labour monopoly might solve -- 2. The fall and rise of labour monopoly theory -- 3. How a wage bill hill creates a wage rate floor -- 4. Why the floor will fluctuate -- 5. How bargaining may build a ceiling instead of a floor -- 6. How foresight may (and may not) defeat the floor...