Oferta de trabajo a varios sectores bajo incertidumbre e irreversibilidad

Abstract

When two sectors of employment exist, the probability of getting a job in each of them must be considered an argument of the labor supply function, as it is shown in this paper. Results depend critically on an irreversibility assumption: decisions can not be revised after the true state of nature is known. If it is assumed that sectors are heterogeneous then: 1) an increase in the rate of unemployment in one sector will reduce the quantity of labor supplied to that sector (discouraged worker effect) and it will increase the quantity of labor supplied to the other sector: 2) assuming certainty for that sector with the lowest wage rate –as most models of development do-, an increase in the rate of unemployment in the other sector, where unemployment prevails, will imply an increase in the total quantity of labor supplied. Under homogeneity of sectors –an usual hypothesis in most macroeconomic models- the distribution of probabilities becomes a binomial. Moreover, an increase in the supplied quantity of labor, both total and to each sector, is obtained when the rate of unemployment increases. Besides, it can be shown –with the proviso that some assumptions on workers' utility function were satisfied- that two equilibria might exist: the walrasian one, and, at the same wage rate, an "equilibrium" with unemployment.