IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1870.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sex Differences in Pay in a "New Monopsony" Model of the Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Ransom, Michael R.

    (Brigham Young University)

  • Oaxaca, Ronald L.

    (University of Arizona)

Abstract

We use a simple framework, adopted from general equilibrium search models, to estimate the extent to which monopsony power (or labor market frictions) can account for gender differences in pay, using data from a chain of regional grocery stores. In this framework, the elasticity of labor supply to the firm can be inferred from estimates of the elasticity of the separation rate with respect to the wage. We identify elasticities of separation from differences in wages and separation rates across job titles and across different years. We estimate elasticities of labor supply to the firm of about 3.5 for men and about 2.7 for women, suggesting significant wage-setting power for the firm. The differences in estimated elasticities of labor supply predict wage differences that are close to the observed male/female wage differences at the firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Ransom, Michael R. & Oaxaca, Ronald L., 2005. "Sex Differences in Pay in a "New Monopsony" Model of the Labor Market," IZA Discussion Papers 1870, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1870
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1870.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Black, Dan A, 1995. "Discrimination in an Equilibrium Search Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 309-333, April.
    2. William M. Boal & Michael R. Ransom, 1997. "Monopsony in the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 86-112, March.
    3. Bhaskar, V & To, Ted, 1999. "Minimum Wages for Ronald McDonald Monopsonies: A Theory of Monopsonistic Competition," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 190-203, April.
    4. Michael Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2005. "Intrafirm Mobility and Sex Differences in Pay," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(2), pages 219-237, January.
    5. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162, October.
    6. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    7. Joan Robinson, 1969. "The Economics of Imperfect Competition," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, edition 0, number 978-1-349-15320-6.
    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. Alison L Booth & Pamela Katic, 2009. "Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: Is there Monopsony Down-under?," CEPR Discussion Papers 626, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    2. Arnaud Dupuy & Todd Sorensen, 2014. "On Input Market Frictions and Estimation of Factors' Demand," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(3), pages 772-781, January.
    3. Alison L. Booth & Pamela Katic, 2011. "Estimating the Wage Elasticity of Labour Supply to a Firm: What Evidence is there for Monopsony?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 87(278), pages 359-369, September.
    4. Hirsch, Boris & Schank, Thorsten & Schnabel, Claus, 2006. "Gender Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms : An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Discussion Papers 47, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    5. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    6. Jahn, Elke & Pozzoli, Dario, 2011. "Does the Sector Experience Affect the Pay Gap for Temporary Agency Workers?," Working Papers 11-9, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    7. Depew, Briggs & Sørensen, Todd A., 2013. "The elasticity of labor supply to the firm over the business cycle," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 196-204.
    8. Ilan Tojerow, 2008. "Industry Wage Differentials Rent Sharing and Gender in Belgium," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 55-65.

    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. Michael R Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2010. "New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 267-289, April.
    2. Simon Janssen & Simone Tuor Sartore & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2016. "Discriminatory Social Attitudes and Varying Gender Pay Gaps within Firms," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(1), pages 253-279, January.
    3. Michael R. Ransom & Ronald L. Oaxaca, 2008. "New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay," Working Papers 1110, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Janssen, Simon & Tuor Sartore, Simone N. & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2014. "Social Attitudes on Gender Equality and Firms' Discriminatory Pay-Setting," IZA Discussion Papers 7959, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Michael R Ransom & David P. Sims, 2010. "Estimating the Firm's Labor Supply Curve in a "New Monopsony" Framework: Schoolteachers in Missouri," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 331-355, April.
    6. Zheng Fang & Chris Sakellariou, 2013. "Discrimination in the Equilibrium Search Model with Wage-Tenure Contracts," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(2), pages 451-480, November.
    7. Bhaskar, V. & To, Ted, 2003. "Oligopsony and the distribution of wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 371-399, April.
    8. Giovanni Sulis, 2012. "Gender wage differentials in Italy: a structural estimation approach," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 53-87, January.
    9. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    10. Holt, Andrew Chase, 2024. "Monopsony power in the United States: Evidence from the great depression," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    11. Lagerlöf, Johan N.M., 2020. "Strategic gains from discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    12. Jahn, Elke & Hirsch, Boris, 2012. "Is there monopsonistic discrimination against immigrants? First evidence from linked employer employee data," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 65417, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French & James M. MacDonald, 2004. "The minimum wage and restaurant prices," Working Paper Series WP-04-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    14. Samuel Muehlemann & Paul Ryan & Stefan C. Wolter, 2013. "Monopsony Power, Pay Structure, and Training," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(5), pages 1097-1114, October.
    15. Boris Hirsch & Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel, 2010. "Differences in Labor Supply to Monopsonistic Firms and the Gender Pay Gap: An Empirical Analysis Using Linked Employer-Employee Data from Germany," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 291-330, April.
    16. Morchio, Iacopo & Moser, Christian, 2018. "The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences," MPRA Paper 99276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Mar 2020.
    17. Dobbelaere, Sabien & Kiyota, Kozo & Mairesse, Jacques, 2015. "Product and labor market imperfections and scale economies: Micro-evidence on France, Japan and the Netherlands," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 290-322.
    18. Barth, Erling & Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2009. "Monopsonistic discrimination, worker turnover, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 589-597, October.
    19. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Christian Zehnder, "undated". "The Behavioral Effects of Minimum Wages," IEW - Working Papers 247, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Strobl, Eric & Walsh, Frank, 2007. "Dealing with monopsony power: Employment subsidies vs. minimum wages," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 83-89, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; discrimination; monopsony;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:iza:izadps:dp1870. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.