Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets

Alessandro Bonanno () and Rigoberto Lopez
Additional contact information
Alessandro Bonanno: University of Connecticut

No 103, Food Marketing Policy Center Research Reports from University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy

Abstract: Despite considerable debate as to Wal-Mart’s impact on retail workers, to date there has been little structural analysis on the topic. This paper measures and tests for Wal-Mart’s monopsony power in local labor markets using a dominant-firm model and data on contiguous U.S. counties where the company operates. 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 6% or higher while the impact on northeastern states’ wages is negligible. The results suggest that this is not a nationwide problem.

Keywords: Wal-Mart; monopsony power; wages; labor; retailing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2008-02
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://fmpc.uconn.edu/publications/rr/rr103.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to fmpc.uconn.edu:80 (No such host is known. )

Related works:
Working Paper: Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets (2008)
Working Paper: Wal-Mart’s Monopsony Power in Local Labor Markets (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zwi:fpcrep:103

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Food Marketing Policy Center Research Reports from University of Connecticut, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Charles J. Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().