Is There Monopsony in the Labor Market? Evidence from a Natural Experiment
利用退伍军人事务部医院外生工资变化作为自然实验，估计护士劳动力供给短期弹性约为0.1，发现非VA医院会跟随调整工资，为劳动力市场买方垄断提供了直接证据。
Recent theoretical and empirical advances have renewed interest in monopsonistic models of the labor market. However, there is little direct empirical support for these models. We use an exogenous change in wages at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals as a natural experiment to investigate the extent of monopsony in the nurse labor market. We estimate that labor supply to individual hospitals is quite inelastic, with short-run elasticity around 0.1. We also find that non-VA hospitals responded to the VA wage change by changing their own wages. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.