Implicit Contracts, Explicit Contracts, and Wages
检验隐性契约理论的关键命题，比较隐性契约与显性契约在工资和就业行为上的实际差异，帮助理解工资粘性的成因。
Over the past decade, the search for an explanation of aggregate money wage stickiness in the face of substantial shifts in the marginal revenue product of labor-of the kind that was associated with an increase in real wages in the depression of the 1930'shas led to an extensive examination of explicit (union) and implicit (nonunion) employment contracting arrangements. This distinction can be exaggerated: long-term union contracts have an implicit element in the sense that they specify only a limited number of contingencies to which wages will be adjusted. Moreover, the implicit contracting branch of the literature has pushed in the direction of implying that the explicit contracts observed in the union sector may be formalizations of common informal arrangements in the nonunion sector, so that differences between the sectors in the behavior of wages and employment may be more apparent than real. The purpose of this paper is to examine the empirical basis for some of the key propositions of implicit contract theories and to note some important differences in the outcome of implicit and explicit contracting.