IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/23410_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Why the market metaphor is misleading

In: The Labour Market Myth

Author

Listed:
  • .

Abstract

The concept of a ‘labour market’ is explained as the interaction between supply and demand of labour through the price mechanism. First, this concept is criticized from an economic perspective. The assumptions underlying an upward-sloping supply curve and a downward-sloping demand curve are scrutinized. Both theoretically and empirically, the existence of a stable relation between supply and demand on the one hand and the wage rate on the other hand is questioned. This also applies to the price mechanism (wage adjustments) as an instrument for balancing supply and demand. From a sociological perspective, even more fundamental criticism of the standard labour market model is formulated. From this perspective, work cannot be considered to be a burden (‘disutility’) for workers, for which they have to be compensated by paying them a wage. Neither can employers’ behaviour be understood as the result of a rational weighing of the short-term costs and benefits of hiring workers.

Suggested Citation

  • ., 2024. "Why the market metaphor is misleading," Chapters, in: The Labour Market Myth, chapter 2, pages 25-47, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:23410_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035334452.00007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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:elg:eechap:23410_2. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    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.