Laszlo Goerke

Social Comparisons in Oligopsony

During his visit at CESifo, Laszlo Goerke will continue to investigate how other-regarding preferences by employees interact with labour market institutions and other deviations from a competitive, potentially first-best setting. In a recent article with Michael Neugart, “Social Comparisons in Oligopsony”, recently published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, he looks at how social comparisons with colleagues alter oligopsonistic market power by employers. The research shows that wages and welfare rise, while the wage distribution becomes more equal. Along these lines, during his stay Mr Goerke will investigate how preferences by employees featuring internal and external reference points affect collective bargaining and, more generally, the process of wage determination. The main question is whether such preferences strengthen the effects, for example, of trade unions, or whether they mitigate them. The answer will have important implications for the normative evaluation of such institutions and the resulting policy consequences.

Laszlo Goerke’s main research focuses on the determinants of labour market institutions and their consequences for labour and product market outcomes. In recent papers he has analysed theoretically how sick pay regulations affect collective bargaining outcomes and the incentives to negotiate wages and working conditions non-individually. He has also scrutinised empirically the impact of works councils on vacation use and of collective bargaining at the firm and sectoral level on employment growth.

Laszlo Goerke is Head of the Economics Division of the Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Community (IAAEG) at the University of Trier. He was previously Professor of Public Economics at the University of Tübingen and Professor of Economics, particularly economic policy, at the University of Mainz. Laszlo Goerke studied economics, history and politics at the University of Hamburg and the University of Warwick. He received his degree in Economics (Diplom Volkswirt) as well as his doctoral degree from the University of Hamburg, based on a thesis on strikes and private information. His postdoctoral Habilitation was on taxes and unemployment. Laszi Goerke is a CESifo Research Network Fellow.