Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35243 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3631
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We examine how group-specific differences in reservation wage, arising due to asymmetries in social entitlements, impact on distribution via the joint determination of class conflict between workers and employers, and 'ethnic' conflict among workers. We model a two-dimensional contest, where two unions, representing different sections of workers, jointly but non-cooperatively invest resources against employers in enforcing an exogenously given rent, while also contesting one another. The rent arises from a 'living' wage, set above reservation wage rates via labour regulations. We show that high reservation wage workers gain, and employers lose, from better social entitlements for low reservation wage workers. The latter however benefit, with employers and against the former, from weak labour regulations. When minority/immigrant workers are marginalized both in the labour market and in non-wage entitlements, improving job access and expanding 'social support' has contradictory effects on class and ethnic conflicts. 'Trade unionism', i.e. political articulation of shared economic interests alone, appears insufficient to temper ethnic conflicts among workers.
Subjects: 
Class conflict
ethnic conflict
living wage
labour regulation
social entitlement
affirmative action
Distribution
JEL: 
D31
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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