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Article
Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs
The Antitrust Bulletin
  • Eric M Gibbons, The Ohio State University
  • Allie Greenman, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • Peter Norlander, Loyola University Chicago
  • Todd Sørensen, University of Nevada, Reno
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-22-2019
Publisher Name
Sage
Disciplines
Abstract

Guest workers on visas in the United States may be unable to quit bad employers due to barriers to mobility and a lack of labor market competition. Using H-1B, H-2A, and H-2B program data, we calculate the concentration of employers in geographically defined labor markets within occupations. We find that many guest workers face moderately or highly concentrated labor markets, based on federal merger scrutiny guidelines, and that concentration generally decreases wages. For example, moving from a market with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of zero to a market comprised of two employers lowers H-1B worker wages approximately 10%, and a pure monopsony (one employer) reduces wages by 13%. A simulation shows that wages under pure monopsony could be 47% lower, suggesting that employers do not use the full extent of their monopsony power. Enforcing wage regulations and decreasing barriers to mobility may better address issues of exploitation than antitrust scrutiny alone.

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Author Posting © Sage, 2019. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Sage for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Antitrust Bulletin, Volume 64, Issue 4, September 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X19875040

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
Citation Information
Eric M Gibbons, Allie Greenman, Peter Norlander and Todd Sørensen. "Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs" The Antitrust Bulletin Vol. 64 Iss. 4 (2019)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter-norlander/26/