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Measuring labor market concentration using the QCEW

Trent Thompson

US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Monthly Labor Review2024https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2024.20article
ABDC B
Weight
0.35

What the paper says

Using data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, this article explores a new measure of labor market concentration as well as how labor market concentration affects wages. In 2023, the average U.S. labor market was highly concentrated among employers according to federal antitrust review guidelines, and highly concentrated labor markets accounted for more than 15 percent of private sector employment and payrolls. Higher employer concentration is found to be significantly associated with lower wages, suggesting that concentration diminishes the bargaining power of workers. This article also simulates the impact of firm mergers on market concentration and wages, finding that mergers could significantly impact market power in thousands of local-level labor markets.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2024.20

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@article{trent2024,
  title        = {{Measuring labor market concentration using the QCEW}},
  author       = {Trent Thompson},
  journal      = {US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Monthly Labor Review},
  year         = {2024},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2024.20},
}

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Measuring labor market concentration using the QCEW

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Evidence weight

0.35

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.12 × 0.4 = 0.05
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.