IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/1999-260.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Missing Market in Labor Quality: The Role of Quality Markets in Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Gary H. Jefferson

Abstract

This paper characterizes a key feature of the classic socialist economy and state-owned enterprise, namely that of missing markets in labor quality. Under the socialist regime in which students and workers were assigned to work units, the rights of managers to monitor and reward workers were limited. The exchange of labor services was based more on measures of quantity rather than quality. Workers who performed functions broadly consistent with that of their assigned occupations for the duration of the designated workweek received the standard wage. With the reassignment of property rights, this situation has changed. Students and workers have resumed control over the accumulation of their human capital the trade of skill and effort. Managers have acquired greater authority to monitor labor - to discriminate in setting wages and bonuses and to hire and fire - as well as stronger incentives to use this authority to raise efficiency and profits. The result is an emerging market in labor quality.A 1995 cross section of enterprise data spanning 10 ownership types is used to test the hypothesis of an emerging labor quality market. The results show that certain non-state forms of ownership, in which the rights of managers to monitor and reward skill and effort are presumed to be relatively well developed, encourage labor quality, most notably training, which raises productivity. The relative inability of state enterprises to monitor and reward high quality labor is likely to create an adverse selection problem in which the most skilled and motivated workers exit from the state sector, so as to cause a "hollowing" of skilled workers and weakened enterprise performance. The theoretical contribution of this paper is to generalize Coase's analysis of the critical role of property rights in creating resource markets to the creation and exchange of quality in all goods. Analytically, the conditions for a missing market in labor quality are equivalent to those for a missing market in pollution abatement and water quality. The analysis underscores the importance of property rights in creating the conditions for the accumulation and efficient exchange of human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary H. Jefferson, 1999. "Missing Market in Labor Quality: The Role of Quality Markets in Transition," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 260, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:1999-260
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39645/3/wp260.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    3. Jefferson, Gary H, 1998. "China's State Enterprises: Public Goods, Externalities, and Coase," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 428-432, May.
    4. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    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. Krishna, Kala & Yavas, Cemile, 2005. "When trade hurts: Consumption indivisibilities and labor market distortions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 413-427, December.
    2. Jed Friedman, 2004. "Firm ownership and internal labour practices in a transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 12(2), pages 333-366, June.
    3. Jed Friedman, 2004. "Firm Ownership and Internal Labor Practices in a Transition Economy: An Exploration of Worker Skill Acquisition in Vietnam," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2004-696, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    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. Alley Ibrahim S. & Adebayo Abimbola L. & Oligbi Blessing O., 2016. "Corporate Governance and Financial Performance Nexus: Any Bidirectional Causality?," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 50(1), pages 82-99, June.
    2. Sybille Sachs & Edwin Rühli & Claude Meier, 2010. "Stakeholder Governance as a Response to Wicked Issues," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 57-64, August.
    3. Dilger, Alexander & Frick, Bernd & Speckbacher, Gerhard, 1999. "Mitbestimmung als zentrale Frage der Corporate Governance," Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Diskussionspapiere 02/1999, University of Greifswald, Faculty of Law and Economics.
    4. Roumasset, James A., 1994. "Explaining Diversity In Agricultural Organization: An Agency Perspective," Bulletins 12982, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    5. Alexander Brink, 2010. "Enlightened Corporate Governance: Specific Investments by Employees as Legitimation for Residual Claims," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 641-651, June.
    6. Bruno Tinel, 2004. "Que reste-t-il de la contribution d'Alchian et Demsetz à la théorie de l'entreprise ?," Post-Print halshs-00270895, HAL.
    7. Dirk Nicolas Wagner, 2019. "The Opportunistic Principal," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 637-657, November.
    8. Chen, Charles J.P. & Li, Zengquan & Su, Xijia & Sun, Zheng, 2011. "Rent-seeking incentives, corporate political connections, and the control structure of private firms: Chinese evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 229-243, April.
    9. Rao, Ramesh K.S., 2015. "The public corporation as an intermediary between “Main Street” and “Wall Street”," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 64-82.
    10. Anetta Čaplánová & Marcel Novák, 2015. "Transakčné náklady, vlastnícke práva a externality - k vedeckému odkazu R. H. Coasea [Transaction Costs, Property Rights and Externalities - on the Contribution of R. H. Coase to Economic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2015(2), pages 244-257.
    11. Louis De Alessi, 1989. "The Effect of Institutions on the Choices of Consumers and Providers of Health Care," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 1(4), pages 427-458, October.
    12. Gene C. Lai & Piman Limpaphayom, 2003. "Organizational Structure and Performance: Evidence From the Nonlife Insurance Industry in Japan," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 70(4), pages 735-757, December.
    13. Hu, Jianfeng & Low, Kelvin F.K. & Zhang, Wei, 2022. "The value of fiduciary duties: Evidence from en bloc sales in Singapore," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Thomas Doleys, 2009. "Incomplete Contracting, Commission Discretion and the Origins of EU Merger Control," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 483-506, June.
    15. Grillet, Luc L., 1991. "Insurance hedging in the theory of the firm," Discussion Papers, Series II 166, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    16. Altman, Ira J. & Johnson, Thomas G., 2004. "A Transaction Cost Econoimcs View Of Agriculture Exchanges For Biopower: Theoretical And Methodological Concerns," 2004 Annual Meeting, February 14-18, 2004, Tulsa, Oklahoma 34686, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    17. Mahoney, Joseph & Asher, Cheryl Carleton & Mahoney, James, 2004. "Towards a Property Rights Foundation for a Stakeholder Theory of the Firm," Working Papers 04-0116, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    18. Caleb Bernacchio, 2023. "Business and the Ethics of Recognition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 1-16, June.
    19. Klein, Peter G. & Mahoney, Joseph T. & McGahan, Anita M. & Pitelis, Christos N., 2012. "Who Is in Charge? A Property Rights Perspective on Stakeholder Governance," Working Papers 12-0102, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    20. Foss, Kirsten, 1996. "Transaction costs and technological development: the case of the Danish fruit and vegetable industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 531-547, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    transition; markets in labor quality; adverse selection; Chinese enterprise reform;
    All these keywords.

    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:wdi:papers:1999-260. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.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.