This paper studies a labor market with directed search, where multi-worker firms follow a firm wage policy: They pay equally productive workers the same. The policy reduces wages, due to the influence of firms’ existing workers on their wage setting problem, increasing the profitability...

Revised May 2016. We analyze a labor market with search and matching frictions in which wage setting is controlled by a monopoly union. Frictions render existing matches a form of firm-specific capital that is subject to a hold-up problem in a unionized labor market. We study how this hold-up...

A labor market with search and matching frictions, where wage setting is controlled by a monopoly union that follows a norm of wage solidarity, is found vulnerable to substantial distortions associated with holdup. With full commitment to future wages, the union achieves efficient hiring in the...

A labor market with search and matching frictions, where wage setting is controlled by a monopoly union that follows a norm of wage solidarity, is found vulnerable to substantial distortions associated with holdup. With full commitment to future wages, the union achieves efficient hiring in the...

This paper develops a tractable extension of a Mortensen-Pissarides style matching model that allows for risk averse workers with limited ability to smooth consumption. I show that this leads to a form of equilibrium wage rigidity, as the inability of workers to smooth their consumption across...