[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Endogenous distortions in product and labor markets

Author

Listed:
  • Rama, Martin
  • Tabellini, Guido
Abstract
The authors use the common agency approach to analyze the joint determination of product and labor market distortions in a small (developing) open economy. Capital owners and union members lobby the government on tariffs and minimum wages, while factors of production in agriculture (the informal sector) are not organized. The government cares about social welfare, but also values the contributions (monetary or else) made by organized groups. The authors show that product and labor market distortions move in the same direction in response to changes in the relevant economic and political parameters, and that the level of those distortions is not modified by social pacts between capital and labor. They also show that conditionality by foreign agencies should target product market distortions, not labor market distortions. Labor market distortions ought not to be targeted because they are second best: they are the optimal response to the product market distortions. Labor market distortions are likely to adjust in the desired direction once product market distortions are removed or diminished.

Suggested Citation

  • Rama, Martin & Tabellini, Guido, 1995. "Endogenous distortions in product and labor markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1413, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1995/01/01/000009265_3970311121405/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    2. Bernheim, B Douglas & Whinston, Michael D, 1986. "Common Agency," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 923-942, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philippe Aghion & Robin Burgess & Stephen J. Redding & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2008. "The Unequal Effects of Liberalization: Evidence from Dismantling the License Raj in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1397-1412, September.
    2. Rama, Martin & Tabellim, Guido, 1998. "Lobbying by capital and labor over trade and labor market policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 1295-1316, July.
    3. Gil S. Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2003. "Political culture and monopoly price determination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 21(1), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Douglas Marcouiller, 1995. "Putting in politics: A review of economic models with endogenous determination of policy," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 37-51, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martimort, David, 1996. "The multiprincipal nature of government," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 673-685, April.
    2. Neven, Damien J. & Roller, Lars-Hendrik, 2005. "Consumer surplus vs. welfare standard in a political economy model of merger control," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(9-10), pages 829-848, December.
    3. Kemmerling, Achim & Neugart, Michael, 2009. "Financial market lobbies and pension reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 163-173, June.
    4. Achim Kemmerling & Andreas Stephan, 2000. "Political Economy of Infrastructure Investment Allocation: Evidence from a Panel of Large German Cities," CIG Working Papers FS IV 00-03, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    5. Cadot, Olivier & Roller, Lars-Hendrik & Stephan, Andreas, 2006. "Contribution to productivity or pork barrel? The two faces of infrastructure investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1133-1153, August.
    6. Marchiori, Carmen & Dietz, Simon & Tavoni, Alessandro, 2017. "Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 115-131.
    7. Laussel, Didier & Le Breton, Michel, 2001. "Conflict and Cooperation: The Structure of Equilibrium Payoffs in Common Agency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 93-128, September.
    8. Estache, Antonio & Martimort, David, 1999. "Politics, transaction costs, and the design of regulatory institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2073, The World Bank.
    9. Marcel Vaillant, 1998. "Endogenous number of lobby groups in a specific factor trade model," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0198, Department of Economics - dECON.
    10. Siqueira, Kevin Jay, 1998. "Issues of collective action: common agency, partial cooperation, and clubs," ISU General Staff Papers 1998010108000013526, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    11. Philip I. Levy, 2003. "Non-Tariff Barriers as a Test of Political Economy Theories," Working Papers 852, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    12. Fredriksson, Per G. & Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Political instability, corruption and policy formation: the case of environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1383-1405, August.
    13. repec:fgv:epgrbe:v:66:n:1:a:4 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Bulte, Erwin H. & Damania, Richard & Lopez, Ramon, 2007. "On the gains of committing to inefficiency: Corruption, deforestation and low land productivity in Latin America," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 277-295, November.
    15. Rama, Martin & Tabellim, Guido, 1998. "Lobbying by capital and labor over trade and labor market policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 1295-1316, July.
    16. Uk Hwang & Francesco Magris, 2005. "Intergenerational Conflicts and the Resource Policy Formation of a Short-Lived Government," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(III), pages 437-457, September.
    17. Epstein, Gil S. & Nitzan, Shmuel, 1999. "The Endogenous Determination of Minimum Wage," IZA Discussion Papers 73, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Levy, Philip I., 1999. "Lobbying and international cooperation in tariff setting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 345-370, April.
    19. Attar, Andrea & Majumdar, Dipjyoti & Piaser, Gwenaël & Porteiro, Nicolás, 2008. "Common agency games: Indifference and separable preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 75-95, July.
    20. Börner, Kira, 2004. "Political Economy Reasons for Government Inertia: The Role of Interest Groups in the Case of Access to Medicines," Discussion Papers in Economics 313, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    21. Uhr, Daniel & Ziero Uhr, Júlia & Mueller, Bernardo, 2012. "Como as ONGs ambientais influenciam a política ambiental brasileira?," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 66(1), March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.