Nash Bargaining, Credible Bargaining and Efficiency Wages in a Matching Model for the US

Malcomson J, Mavroeidis S

This paper incorporates Nash bargaining, credible bargaining and efficiency wages as special cases of an over-arching model of wage determination in a matching model that is used to assess econometrically how well each fits US data.  With Nash bargaining, estimates for worker bargaining power and the value of non-work activity are almost identical to those calibrated by Hagedorn and Manovskii (2008).  However, the over-identifying restrictions are overwhelmingly rejected statistically, as they are for credible bargaining.  Efficiency wages fit the data better, with the over-identifying restrictions not rejected statistically, and result in a lower, more plausible estimated value of non-work activity.

Keywords:

E2

,

J3

,

J6

,

Matching frictions

,

wage bargaining

,

efficiency wages

,

unemployment

,

shirking