Informal Incentives and Labour Markets
研究了企业使用非正式、自我执行的协议激励工人时，劳动力市场紧张程度如何影响市场结果，发现劳动力供给增加可能提高工资，且存在利润最大化的歧视均衡，最低工资可减少歧视并增加就业。
ABSTRACT This paper investigates how labour-market tightness affects market outcomes if firms use informal, self-enforcing, agreements to motivate workers. We characterise profit-maximising equilibria and show that an increase in the supply of homogeneous workers can increase wages. Moreover, even though all workers are identical in terms of skills or productivity, profit-maximising discrimination equilibria exist. There, a group of majority workers is paid higher wages than a group of minority workers, who may even be completely excluded. Minimum wages can reduce such discrimination and increase employment. We discuss how these results relate to empirical evidence on downward wage rigidity, immigration, the gender pay gap and credentialism.