PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - José Azar
AU  - Ioana Marinescu
AU  - Marshall Steinbaum
TI  - Labor Market Concentration
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.monopsony.1218-9914R1
DP  - 2020 May 12
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 1218-9914R1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2020/05/04/jhr.monopsony.1218-9914R1.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2020/05/04/jhr.monopsony.1218-9914R1.full
AB  - A product market is concentrated when a few firms dominate the market. Similarly, a labor market is concentrated when a few firms dominate hiring in the market. Using data from the leading employment website CareerBuilder.com, we calculate labor market concentration for over 8,000 geographic-occupational labor markets in the US. Based on the DOJ-FTC horizontal merger guidelines, the average market is highly concentrated. Going from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile in concentration is associated with a 5% (OLS) to 17% (IV) decline in posted wages, suggesting that concentration increases labor market power.