Pixl Gateway: Progression – Economics

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Pixl Gateway: Progression – Economics PiXL Gateway: Progression – Economics Year 12-13 Economics 1 Contents: I. Economics Vocabulary II. The PiXL Unlock Template III. Summer Reading list IV. Links to TED Talks/Articles/Documentaries/Books/Journals V. Knowledge Organiser Template VI. Thinking Hard Revisit Template VII. A Model of the Thinking Hard Revisit document VIII. Cornell Notes Template IX. A Model of the Cornell Notes document 2 I. Economics Vocabulary ECONOMICS: Currently, within the Economics secton of the app, we have the following units: • Introducton to markets and market failure • The UK Economy • Business Behaviour and the Labour Market • A Global Perspectve Introducton to markets and market failure Keywords and Defnitons Word Defniton value Value judgements are subjectve statements of opinion, rather than factual ones. judgements ceteris paribus Ceteris paribus means ‘all other things remaining equal’. renewable Renewable resources are those which can be replaced by natural means as quickly as resources they are used. non-renewable Non-renewable resources are those which cannot be readily replaced as quickly as they resources are used up. Positve statements are statements which can be tested and rejected with reference to positve evidence. Normatve statements are subjectve statements which cannot be tested and rejected normatve with reference to evidence. Scarcity refers to a lack of something. It occurs in situatons where there is greater scarcity demand than supply. opportunity Opportunity cost is the cost of the next best alternatve foregone as a result of an cost economic decision. productve Productve potental is the maximum quantty of goods and services which can be potental produced by a set amount of resources. producton A producton possibility fronter is the maximum output combinatons for two goods, possibility assuming all resources are used efciently. fronter Productvity is the efciency with which capital and labour are combined in order to productvity create output. economic Economic growth is the long-term expansion of the productve potental of the economy, growth as measured by an increase in the value of real natonal output. capital goods Capital goods are products made to facilitate producton of consumer goods. consumer Consumer goods are products made to satsfy the needs and wants of end users. goods Specialisaton is concentratng productve eforts into a smaller number of tasks, actvites specialisaton or products. division of Division of labour is the breaking down of producton into smaller, discrete tasks. labour A free market is where level of output and price are dictated by forces of supply and free market demand. command A command economy is where a central agent makes economic decisions relatng to the economy organisaton of producton. 3 efciency Efciency is a state of resource usage where wastage is minimised. A curve, in economics, is a line representng the connecton between two or more points curve on a plane. functons Functons are the role of an agent in a process or relatonship between variables. Money is the medium of exchange which is commonly used for transactons and money purchases. Utlity, in economics, is the satsfacton or usefulness derived from consuming a partcular utlity good or service. Ratonality, in economics, is the assumpton that economic decisions will be taken to best ratonality satsfy wants and needs. marginal Marginal means a specifc change in a variable, ofen meaning ‘one more or fewer’. price Price is the amount of money needed to acquire a specifc volume of goods. optmal Optmal is the best result which can be obtained from any decision. market A market is a place where buyers and sellers interact to exchange goods and services. Demand is the amount consumers are willing and able to consume at any given price demand level. supply Supply is the amount producers are willing and able to provide at any given price level. consumers Consumers are people or organisatons which use economic services or commodites. producers Producers are partes which create or supply economic goods or services. ratoning Ratoning is a way of controlling the consumpton of scarce resources. incentve An incentve is a factors which motvates someone to behave in a certain way. signal A signal is a method of sending some informaton from one party to another. complementary Complementary goods are two goods which are bought or consumed together. substtute Substtute goods are two goods which are bought or consumed instead of one another. Elastcity, in economics, is the responsiveness of one factor to a change in price of a good elastcity or income. inferior goods Inferior goods are products which experience lower demand as consumers’ incomes rise. tax Tax is a compulsory contributon charged by the government. A subsidy is a payment made by government to encourage consumpton or producton of subsidy a specifc good or service. Surplus is a situaton where there is a greater amount of assets than the current surplus requirement for them. Externalites are the efects on a third party of transactons in which they are neither externalites producer nor consumer. welfare Welfare is the level of prosperity and quality of living standards. 4 An interventon, in economics, is an acton taken by a government or insttuton to impact interventon the economy in a certain way. Public goods are those goods usually under-provided in a free market because their non- public goods rivalrous and non-excludable nature means there is no direct incentve to pay. unintended Unintended consequences are outcomes which are not the ones foreseen and desired by consequences partes taking a course of acton. regulaton A regulaton is a government placing rules (and sanctons) on individuals and frms. permit A permit, in economics, is a right to buy or sell a specifc good or service. asymmetric Asymmetric informaton is a situaton where one party in a transacton has greater informaton knowledge than the other. The UK Economy Keywords and Defnitons Word Defniton macroeconomic Macroeconomic refers to the behaviour of the economy on a (inter)natonal scale. gross domestc Gross domestc product (GDP) is the value of all goods and services produced within a product (GDP) country over a period of tme. gross natonal Gross natonal income (GNI) refers to the incomes which fow to the owners of a income (GNI) country’s factors of producton (wherever those factors are located). The trade cycle shows fuctuatons in economic actvity over a period of tme (as trade cycle measured against antcipated or ‘trend’ rates of growth to highlight recession/boom etc). output gap An output gap is the diference between the actual and potental output of any economy. recession A recession is a sustained decline in economic actvity. Infaton, in economics, is a sustained increase in average price levels over a period of infaton tme. real In economics, the word real is the nominal (or actual) value adjusted for infaton. nominal Nominal is the value which has not been adjusted for infaton. disinfaton Disinfaton is a decrease in the rate of infaton. defaton Defaton, in economics, is a sustained fall in the general price level. consumer price The consumer price index (CPI) is a weighted average of the price of a representatve index (CPI) basket of consumer goods and services. retail price The retail price index (RPI) is a measure of infaton which, unlike CPI, includes housing index (RPI) and mortgage interest costs. In economics, unemployment is the measure of the number of people who are willing unemployment and able to work but cannot fnd a job. Living standards are a measure of the wealth, comfort, material goods and necessites living standards available to a populaton. natonal Natonal happiness is a wider measure of well-being than the traditonal measures of happiness income and wealth. 5 current account The current account of the balance of payments measures the infows and outlows of of balance of goods, services, investment incomes and transfer payments of a naton. payments exports Exports are goods produced in one country and sold to another foreign naton. imports Imports are goods which are purchased from another country. circular fow of The circular fow of income is a model showing the way money fows in exchange for income labour and goods between frms and households. An injecton, in economics, is an additon to the circular fow of income through injecton government spending, investment or exports. A withdrawal is a leakage from the circular fow of income as it is reduced via imports, withdrawal taxes and savings. Savings are the amount lef over from income, once a consumer has satsfed their savings spending in a period. The multplier efect is the concept that an injecton into an economy will create an multplier efect overall impact, larger than the size of the original injecton. propensity Propensity means a tendency or inclinaton to behave in a certain way. aggregate Aggregate demand (AD) is a measure of the total amount spent by all agents within an demand (AD) economy. consumpton Consumpton, in economics, is the purchase of goods and services for use by households. Investment, in economics, refers to frms spending money on goods which are not investment consumed but are retained to enable future producton. A consumer, in economics, is a person or frm which uses goods and services in an consumer economy. aggregate Aggregate supply (AS) is the total amount of goods and services that frms within an supply (AS) economy are willing and able to supply at any given price level. equilibrium Equilibrium is the state in which diferent forces are held in balance. Spare capacity is the level of unused resources within an economy whereby it operates spare capacity below its productve potental. demographic Demographic refers to factors relatng to a populaton such as age, race, gender etc. productvity Productvity is a measure of the rate at which inputs are turned into outputs.
Recommended publications
  • Economics of Competition in the U.S. Livestock Industry Clement E. Ward
    Economics of Competition in the U.S. Livestock Industry Clement E. Ward, Professor Emeritus Department of Agricultural Economics Oklahoma State University January 2010 Paper Background and Objectives Questions of market structure changes, their causes, and impacts for pricing and competition have been focus areas for the author over his entire 35-year career (1974-2009). Pricing and competition are highly emotional issues to many and focusing on factual, objective economic analyses is critical. This paper is the author’s contribution to that effort. The objectives of this paper are to: (1) put meatpacking competition issues in historical perspective, (2) highlight market structure changes in meatpacking, (3) note some key lawsuits and court rulings that contribute to the historical perspective and regulatory environment, and (4) summarize the body of research related to concentration and competition issues. These were the same objectives I stated in a presentation made at a conference in December 2009, The Economics of Structural Change and Competition in the Food System, sponsored by the Farm Foundation and other professional agricultural economics organizations. The basis for my conference presentation and this paper is an article I published, “A Review of Causes for and Consequences of Economic Concentration in the U.S. Meatpacking Industry,” in an online journal, Current Agriculture, Food & Resource Issues in 2002, http://caes.usask.ca/cafri/search/archive/2002-ward3-1.pdf. This paper is an updated, modified version of the review article though the author cannot claim it is an exhaustive, comprehensive review of the relevant literature. Issue Background Nearly 20 years ago, the author ran across a statement which provides a perspective for the issues of concentration, consolidation, pricing, and competition in meatpacking.
    [Show full text]
  • Application of Game Theory in Swedish Raw Material Market Rami Al-Halabi 2020-06-12
    Application of game theory in Swedish raw material market Rami Al-Halabi 2020-06-12 Application of game theory in Swedish raw material market Investigating the pulpwood market Rami Al-Halabi Dokumenttyp – Självständigt arbete på grundnivå Huvudområde: Industriell organisation och ekonomi GR (C) Högskolepoäng: 15 HP Termin/år: VT2020 Handledare: Soleiman M. Limaei Examinator: Leif Olsson Kurskod/registreringsnummer: IG027G Utbildningsprogram: Civilingenjör, industriell ekonomi i Application of game theory in Swedish raw material market Rami Al-Halabi 2020-06-12 Sammanfattning Studien går ut på att analysera marknadsstrukturen för två industriföretag (Holmen och SCA) under antagandet att båda konkurrerar mot varandra genom att köpa rå material samt genom att sälja förädlade produkter. Produktmarknaden som undersöks är pappersmarknaden och antas vara koncentrerad. Rå materialmarknaden som undersöks är massavedmarknaden och antas karaktäriseras som en duopsony. Det visade sig att Holmen och SCA köper massaved från en stor mängd skogsägare. Varje företag skapar varje månad en prislista där de bestämmer bud priset för massaved. Priset varierar beroende på region. Både SCA och Holmen väljer mellan två strategiska beslut, antigen att buda högt pris eller lågt pris. Genom spelteori så visade det sig att båda industriföretagen använder mixade strategier då de i vissa tillfällen budar högt och i andra tillfällen budar lågt. Nash jämviktslägen för mixade strategier räknades ut matematiskt och analyserades genom dynamisk spelteori. Marknadskoncentrationen för pappersmarknaden undersöktes via Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). Porters femkraftsmodell användes för att analysera industri konkurrensen. Resultatet visade att produktmarknaden är koncentrerad då HHI testerna gav höga indexvärden mellan 3100 och 1700. Det existerade dessutom ett Nash jämviktsläge för mixade strategier som gav SCA förväntad lönsamhet 1651 miljoner kronor och Holmen 1295 miljoner kronor.
    [Show full text]
  • Buyer Power: Is Monopsony the New Monopoly?
    COVER STORIES Antitrust , Vol. 33, No. 2, Spring 2019. © 2019 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association. Buyer Power: Is Monopsony the New Monopoly? BY DEBBIE FEINSTEIN AND ALBERT TENG OR A NUMBER OF YEARS, exists—or only when it can also be shown to harm consumer commentators have debated whether the United welfare; (2) historical case law on monopsony; (3) recent States has a monopoly problem. But as part of the cases involving monopsony issues; and (4) counseling con - recent conversation over the direction of antitrust siderations for monopsony issues. It remains to be seen law and the continued appropriateness of the con - whether we will see significantly increased enforcement Fsumer welfare standard, the debate has turned to whether the against buyer-side agreements and mergers that affect buyer antitrust agencies are paying enough attention to monopsony power and whether such enforcement will be successful, but issues. 1 A concept that appears more in textbooks than in case what is clear is that the antitrust enforcement agencies will be law has suddenly become mainstream and practitioners exploring the depth and reach of these theories and clients should be aware of developments when they counsel clients must be prepared for investigations and enforcement actions on issues involving supply-side concerns. implicating these issues. This topic is not going anywhere any time soon.
    [Show full text]
  • Monopsony Power, Pay Structure and Training
    IZA DP No. 5587 Monopsony Power, Pay Structure and Training Samuel Muehlemann Paul Ryan Stefan C. Wolter March 2011 DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor Monopsony Power, Pay Structure and Training Samuel Muehlemann University of Bern and IZA Paul Ryan King’s College Cambridge Stefan C. Wolter University of Bern, CESifo and IZA Discussion Paper No. 5587 March 2011 IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 E-mail: [email protected] Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
    [Show full text]
  • Bilateral Oligopoly: Countervailing Market Power
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by OAR@UM Bilateral Oligopoly: Countervailing Market Power Andrew Brincat [email protected] Abstract: Malta’s economy, minute by any standard, makes for imperfectly competitive market structures. The degree of this competition is quite interesting since many firms, in the wholesale, retail, as well as in other sectors, tend to form part of oligopolistic structures, such as banking, mobile phone service provision, internet service providers, bottled-water manufacturers, insurance, food importers, supermarkets, and new and used car importers. Oligopsony, or the concentration of market power in the hands of a few buyers, may be considered as the other side of the coin. Many studies of oligopsony have focused on retailers who manage to extract prices and conditions from providers or manufacturers that are beneficial to them, but not necessarily to consumers. This paper discusses the degree of oligopoly power and how the firm tends to wield this power. It also discusses the conceptual basis of bilateral oligopoly (oligopoly and oligopsony) and some of its economic and welfare effects. Keywords: oligopsony, market, economy, oligopoly, buyer ligopoly is usually defined as the market structure which is made up of a few firms. Such firms tend to be relatively large Oin comparison to other firms in more competitive market structures. Oligopsony, on the other hand, is the concentration of market buying power in the hands of a few buyers. usually, firms in an oligopolistic output market may be operating as oligopsonists in an input market. This has very important ramifications for the behaviour of such firms in upstream and downstream markets.
    [Show full text]
  • Pai723lecture11
    McPeak Lecture 11 PAI 723 Monopsony. There is only a single buyer in a market, and this single buyer chooses the price quantity pair from the supply curve. It buys at a price below what the price would be in a competitive market. Supply curve is of the input, the demand curve is the demand of the monopsonist. Without getting into the details, it is conceptually similar to the monopoly case, though the focus is on the supply curve / marginal expenditure curve rather than the demand curve / marginal revenue curve. Know there is a conceptual distinction. Strategic interactions and Game theory. Game theory is a tool to understand why outcomes with higher payoffs may not be possible to obtain if each individual acts in his or her own best interest. The reward associated with an action is not just a function of an individual’s decision but also a function of decisions made and actions taken by others. It is used to understand why a failure to coordinate actions leads us to an outcome that does not maximize welfare of the decision makers, and possibly well-being in our society. Players in a game formulate best response strategies to actions that are possible by other players. Where players are playing best response to each other, we call it a Nash equilibrium. We can describe a Nash equilibrium by the actions taken by players and the resulting payoffs to players. Chicken game, Footloose style. Kevin Bacon (KB) is driving the tractor down the road toward Lunkhead Farm Guy (LFG). Both KB and LFG have to make a decision; go straight or swerve.
    [Show full text]
  • Microeconomics Lecture Outline
    Microeconomics Claudia Vogel EUV Winter Term 2009/2010 Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 1 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Lecture Outline Part III Market Structure and Competitive Strategy 10 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Monopoly The Social Costs of Monopoly Power Monopsony Summary 11 Pricing with Market Power Capturing Consumer Surplus Price Discrimination Summary Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 2 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony monopoly: Market with only one seller monopsony: Market with only one buyer market power: Ability of a seller or buyer to aect the price of a good. Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 3 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Monopoly Monopoly marginal revenue: Change in revenue resulting from a from a one-unit increase in output. To see the relationship among total, average, and marginal revenue, consider a rm facing the following demand curve: P = 6 − Q Total Marginal Average Price (P) Quantity (Q) Revenue (R) Revenue (MR) Revenue (AR) $6 0 0 5 1 5 $5 $5 4 2 8 3 4 3 3 9 1 3 2 4 8 -1 2 1 5 5 -3 1 Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 4 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Monopoly Average Revenue and Marginal Revenue Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 5 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Monopoly The Monopolist's Output Decision 1/2 Prot is maximized when marginal revenue equals marginal cost. Claudia Vogel (EUV) Microeconomics Winter Term 2009/2010 6 / 34 Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony Monopoly The Monopolist's Output Decision 2/2 We can also see algebraically that Q∗ maximizes prot.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Microeconomics E201
    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ INTRODUCTION TO MICROECONOMICS E201 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Dr. David A. Dilts Department of Economics, School of Business and Management Sciences Indiana - Purdue University - Fort Wayne $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ May 10, 1995 First Revision July 14, 1995 Second Revision May 5, 1996 Third Revision August 16, 1996 Fourth Revision May 15, 2003 Fifth Revision March 31, 2004 Sixth Revision July 7, 2004 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Introduction to Microeconomics, E201 8 Dr. David A. Dilts All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of Dr. David A. Dilts 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 ,1996, 2003 and 2004 Published by Indiana - Purdue University - Fort Wayne for use in classes offered by the Department
    [Show full text]
  • Monopsony 2013: Still Not Truly Symmetric Presented and Authored By: Jonathan M
    61ST ANNUAL ANTITRUST LAW SPRING MEETING April 12, 2013 • 8:15–9:45 am Monopsony: What’s the Latest on (Too) Low Prices? Monopsony 2013: Still Not Truly Symmetric Presented and Authored By: Jonathan M. Jacobson Prepared March 4, 2013 Monopsony 2013: Still Not Truly Symmetric Jonathan M. Jacobson* ▬ Presented at the 61st Spring Meeting of the Section of Antitrust Law, American Bar Association ▬ Panel Discussion: “Monopsony: What’s the Latest on (Too) Low Prices?” April 12, 2013 ____________________ * Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, New York. This paper draws on two prior works, cited below, that were co-authored with a great friend, the late Dr. Gary Dorman. Many thanks to Dr. Lauren Stiroh and Susan Creighton for helpful comments. We have been assured for years that “monopoly and monopsony are symmetrical distortions of competition,”1 and that statement is precisely true. But the conclusion some have told us to draw, that symmetric legal and economic treatment is necessarily required, 2 is sometimes quite wrong. Despite the superficial appeal of symmetric outcomes, economic analysis frequently yields a different result. And, indeed, the case law over many decades has been consistent in authorizing conduct by buyers that symmetric treatment would prevent. To that end, the courts routinely uphold practices such as purchasing cooperatives whose counterparts are invariably condemned as unlawful per se on the selling side.3 And to this day, no reported case has found a firm guilty of unilateral monopsonization, notwithstanding the numerous occasions in which single-firm conduct has been held to constitute unlawful monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.4 The purposes of this paper are, first, to explain the important real world economic differences between monopoly and monopsony and, second, to analyze why the outcomes in the relevant case law are generally consistent with sound economic analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labour Markets
    Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labour Markets Alan Manning Chapter 1 Introduction Introduction What happens if an employer cuts the wage they pay their workers by one cent? Much of labour economics is built on the assumption that all existing workers immediately leave the firm as that is the implication of the assumption of perfect competition in the labour market. In such a situation an employer faces a market wage for each type of labour determined by forces beyond their control at which any number of these workers can be hired but any attempt to pay a lower wage will result in the complete inability to hire any of them at all. The labour supply curve facing the firm is infinitely elastic. In contrast this book is based on two assumptions about the labour market. They can be stated very simply: S there are important frictions in the labour market S employers set wages The implications of these assumptions can also be stated simply. The existence of frictions means that there are generally rents to jobs i.e if an employer and worker are forcibly separated one or, more commonly, both of the parties would be made worse-off. This gives employers some market power over their workers as a small wage cut will no longer induce them to leave the firm. The assumption that employers set wages then tells us that employers exercise this market power. But, with these two assumptions, it is monopsony not perfect competition that is the best simple model to describe the decision problem facing an individual employer.
    [Show full text]
  • Labor Market Monopsony: Trends, Consequences, and Policy Responses
    COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS ISSUE BRIEF OCTOBER 2016 LABOR MARKET MONOPSONY: TRENDS, CONSEQUENCES, AND POLICY RESPONSES Introduction Figure 1: Labor Share of Income, Nonfarm Business Sector, 1948-2016 Percent In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 68 in 2015, the typical household saw its income grow 66 by $2,800, or 5.2 percent, the fastest rate on record. 64 Over the course of this business cycle, average annual wage growth has been higher than any 62 business cycle since the early 1970s. This is real 60 2016:Q2 progress toward higher incomes for working 58 Americans—a central goal of many of the policy initiatives the Obama Administration has undertaken 56 since 2009. 54 1948 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2008 Note: Shading denotes recession. But while these gains are a step in the right direction, Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Productivity and Costs more work remains to fully address long-term challenges of slow wage growth and rising inequality. At the same time, labor income itself has become Over the past several decades, only the highest increasingly unequally divided. Researchers have earners have seen steady wage gains; for most focused on the divergence between worker skills and workers, wage growth has been sluggish and has employer needs—a challenge brought about by failed to keep pace with gains in productivity (CEA technological change and a trend in educational 2015, Ch. 3). Though the slowdown in wage growth investments that, while rising, has not kept pace with is partly due to a slowdown in productivity growth demand, which has risen even faster (Autor 2014; since the 1970s, the share of income accruing to Katz and Murphy 1992; Goldin and Katz 2007).
    [Show full text]
  • The Behavioral Economics of the Labor Market: Central Findings and Their Policy Implications
    The Behavioral Economics of the Labor Market: Central Findings and Their Policy Implications Ernst Fehr, Lorenz Goette, and Christian Zehnder Managers claim that workers have so many opportunities to take advantage of employers that it is not wise to depend on coercion and financial incentives alone as motivators. Employers [believe] that other motivators are necessary, which are best thought of as having to do with generosity (Bewley 1995, 252). Such employment policies are difficult to explain with an economic model in which all agents have strictly selfish preferences. In this paper we argue that these phenomena can be better understood if one acknowl- edges that a significant share of individuals has a preference for recipro- cal fairness that leads them to work harder when they are treated fairly by their employers. We review the evidence on two major psychological forces that possibly drive such fair-minded behavior. First, research sug- gests that some individuals are willing to sacrifice considerable resources to prevent unfair outcomes: they may be willing to put in extra effort if they feel treated fairly, but they may also withhold effort if they feel treated unfairly (Fehr and Gächter 2000). Second, in making judgments about fairness, individuals compare what they (and others) get to what they think they (and others) are entitled to receive (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler 1986). If any party receives less than this entitlement, fair- minded individuals will try to reduce this gap. A strong feature of these comparisons is loss aversion—that is, the tendency for losses to loom larger than gains. The presence of these two forces makes specific predictions for the labor-market setting.
    [Show full text]