Suresh Naidu

Suresh Naidu joined us for a JFI Research Session to discuss his upcoming book, Terms of Service: Labor Market Power from American Slavery to Amazon Mechanical Turk.

His presentation covered the growing research on monopsony, including mounting evidence that mispricing of wages is not strongly linked to individuals quitting their jobs. One implication of firm control over wages is that they are between 50 and 20% below marginal product. In addition, Naidu discussed what contributes to employer power, as well as strategies to counter it.

This history of labor markets, from slavery, to master-servant law, to the gilded age gives continuity to the analytical tools necessary for examining labor markets in the present. Check out our twitter thread for some more tidbits from the discussion. We were grateful for the fascinating presentation and discussion, and look forward to reading the full text when it is out.

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