Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets

Alessandro Bonanno and Rigoberto Lopez

No 6219, 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida from American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association)

Abstract: This paper measures the degree of monopsony power exerted by Wal-Mart over retail workers using a dominant-firm model and data on contiguous U.S. counties where the company operates, presenting for the first time a measure of the anti-competitive behavior of the company. Empirical results show that Wal-Mart’s monopsony power over workers varies significantly across the country, being higher in rural counties, particularly in the south. For instance, Wal-Mart’s buying power index in labor markets in rural southern central states is estimated to be 5% or higher while the impact on northeastern states’ retail wages is negligible.

Keywords: Labor; and; Human; Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea08:6219

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.6219

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