Providing a rich analysis, Bargaining Power, Wages, and Employment examines one of the most deprived groups in the country: agricultural laborers. This group constitutes 30% of all rural households, nearly two thirds of whom live below the poverty line, and accounts for about 60% of the total unemployed person-days in rural India. Using data for five different agro-climatic zones, the author develops a new bargaining model for the casual labor market at the village level. By exerting asymmetric power, the bargaining model ...
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Providing a rich analysis, Bargaining Power, Wages, and Employment examines one of the most deprived groups in the country: agricultural laborers. This group constitutes 30% of all rural households, nearly two thirds of whom live below the poverty line, and accounts for about 60% of the total unemployed person-days in rural India. Using data for five different agro-climatic zones, the author develops a new bargaining model for the casual labor market at the village level. By exerting asymmetric power, the bargaining model determines the agricultural wage rate, the level of employment, and the employers profits. Of particular interest is author Gaurav Datt s analysis of quasi-cooperative forms of behavior that persist even where labor unions are nonexistent as well as Datt s emphasis on the importance of building gender disparity into the bargaining process. Also developing a new research agenda for a hitherto neglected area of study, Bargaining Power, Wages, and Employment will be of interest to students, academics, and researchers in labor studies, agricultural economics, economic theory, and development studies.
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