Arbeitspapier

Labor Market Power in Developing Countries: Evidence from Colombian Plants

How much can employers in low and middle-income countries suppress wages below marginal productivity? Using plant and customs data from Colombia, we exploit pre- determined variation across plants in sales export destination combined with variation in exchange rates to generate plant-specific shocks to marginal revenue productivity and labor demand. We estimate a firm-level labor supply elasticity of around 2.5, implying that workers produce about 40% more than their wage level. Our results indicate that Colombian and US manufacturers have a comparable degree of labor market power.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 14390

Classification
Wirtschaft
Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance: General
Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
Economywide Country Studies: Latin America; Caribbean
Subject
labor market power
export
Colombia

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Amodio, Francesco
de Roux, Nicolás
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
(where)
Bonn
(when)
2021

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Amodio, Francesco
  • de Roux, Nicolás
  • Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Time of origin

  • 2021

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