Labor Associations: The Blue Wall of Silence

David Levine, Andrea Mattozzi and Salvatore Modica

No 18155, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We develop a model showing that when labor demand is inelastic and individual behavior is easily monitored a firm’s employees may prefer to protect its shirkers. By optimally reducing overall effort and increasing wages for all, a labor association rationally uses its monopoly power as described in the left wing labor slogan “work less so that all may work.†In addition, employees have a strong incentive to conceal information about peers’ performance from firms, what has been infamously known as the blue wall of silence in the case of the police. We argue that a number of recently proposed remedies to this problem are unlikely to succeed and suggest a more promising alternative: increase competition.

Date: 2023-05
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Working Paper: Labor Associations: The Blue Wall of Silence (2021)
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