Bargaining Over Labor: Do Patients Have Any Power?

Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh

No 6165, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We provide a new method of identifying the level of relative bargaining power in bilateral negotiations using exogenous variation in the degree of conflict between parties. Using daily births data, we study negotiations over birth timing. In doing so, we exploit the fact that fewer children are born on the "inauspicious" dates of February 29 and April 1; most likely, we argue, reflecting parental preferences. When these inauspicious dates abut a weekend, this creates a potential conflict between avoiding the inauspicious date (the parents' likely preference), and avoiding the weekend (the doctor's likely preference). Using daily births data, we estimate how often this conflict is resolved in favor of the physician. We show how this provides an estimate of how bargaining power is distributed between patients and physicians.

Keywords: timing of births; weekend effect; bargaining power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Economic Record, 2012, 88 (281), 182 - 194

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Related works:
Journal Article: Bargaining Over Labour: Do Patients Have Any Power? (2012)
Working Paper: Bargaining Over Labor: Do Patients have any Power? (2006)
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